


stay up a few more nights

by regulidae



Series: i love you like [1]
Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, i'm going to repost things now sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 11:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 35,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19333408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regulidae/pseuds/regulidae
Summary: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that at some point in his life, a healthy, heterosexual young man drops his pencil five times during one class not to secretly grab a snack from his bag, but to stare at girls’ legs.Koga never reaches that point; partially because he decides girls are horrible the moment one kicks him in the balls in fifth grade, and partially because the person whose legs he’d drop a pencil for wears trousers and their classroom is one floor up, so he would need a periscope in the first place.





	1. Chapter 1

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that at some point in his life, a healthy, heterosexual young man drops his pencil five times during one class not to secretly grab a snack from his bag, but to stare at girls’ legs.

Koga never reaches that point; partially because he decides girls are horrible the moment one kicks him in the balls in fifth grade, and partially because the person whose legs he’d drop a pencil for wears trousers and their classroom is one floor up, so he would need a periscope in the first place.

 

* * *

 

 

Koga puts his shoes on and opens the music app on his phone, ruffles Leon for the last time and leaves. Ten minutes on foot to the train station, fifteen minutes by train and five minutes to Yumenosaki. And then fifteen hours, and approximately one hundred and twenty days, Koga isn’t good at math, and he’s Free.

Okay, so maybe give or take two weeks, depending on if the senpai will feel like meddling in after graduating or not. In theory they shouldn’t, in practice, well. So one hundred and twenty days _and_ some until the light music club is his, UNDEAD is his and Adonis’, and until he’s the _senpai_ senpai and the new first years look at him with admiration and think he’s really cool.

He reaches into his pocket, fishes out his phone and taps next, because _Dead leaves_ makes him feel sleepy, then after five seconds of the next song, he closes the music app and slides the phone back into the bag. Somehow he’s not in the mood for music, and maybe he’ll (he can’t believe his own thoughts) skip the club today. It would be his first time, and after all, he would be tired. After that mini project with Isara and. Ah. Narukami.

Narukami ‘uwaah I have a date today, flower emoji’ Arashi.

It’s not like Koga has anything against Narukami, maybe aside from the fact he’s fucking weird, annoying, speaks in that weird voice and calls him Koga-chan. Other than that, he’s cool. Can throw a chair, a really useful skill nowadays. Good dude.

It’s just that he has quite a lot of those ‘dates’ recently. Not that Koga pays attention to him talking about those in class, of course. Duh. He doesn’t care about Narukami’s stupid dates. It’s just a bit annoying to look at him, when he’s giggling about something on his phone screen or even showing it to Micchan, and replying with, probably, memes and giggling even more.

Koga doesn’t care at all, and the reason he remembers Narukami’s first ☆☆☆ _date!_ ☆☆☆ is because, obviously, he’s been bored (his phone was dead), and Narukami’s bragging was really loud. And he remembers, just happens to, how it all began, so obviously he also… happens to overhear. His memory isn’t that dumb to forget things he was a direct witness of, that’s it. So he doesn’t care, just remembers it all really well, because he’s a wolf, and it just. Keeps coming back.

Because – Halloween. Narukami’s some weird-ass mix of an evil queen and a witch, he’s even wearing a cape that looks a bit like a skirt at the back. What’s with that dude and being girly? Koga has no idea, but Narukami does some of that weird shit, _step aside, the queen is coming_ or something, raising his hand as if shooing them, UNDEAD, the _epitome_ of Halloween, away. And that vampire dumbass, probably going dumber with age, or maybe high on whatever was in those sweets, takes his hand and fucking kisses it like he was straight outta some dumb European period drama or whatever. Or maybe just pretends to, Koga wants to believe, because that’s somehow less embarrassing. And of course he doesn’t give a fuck, his useless leader will do whatever he wants anyway. And if he’s an inch from dropping Leon, then it’s because it’s all so fucking pathetic and stupid and he– doesn’t. Care. He also doesn’t care about their flirty chitchat later, because why would he. And then Hakaze makes a comment that goes like, hey it’s okay if you want to get some female attention but you gotta try harder at _recognizing actual girls_ , and then the hellish vampire fuck just smirks, and Koga wants to take that huge pumpkin and smash it on his head, because he. Doesn’t. _CARE_.

Or, another example: the beginning of November, like some time after that vampire asshole’s birthday, when they throw him a small party in the club room and apparently he’s not expecting it because for a moment his face looks– looks exceptionally dumb, and hilarious. And then he cries, probably ruining the impression of cool edgy UNDEAD some first years might have. Koga still thinks about it sometimes – because he hates him, so all his embarrassing moments are fried chicken for his soul.

So then – at some point in class Narukami is like, guess who has a date! And gives Micchan like two seconds before answering himself that IT IS I. IT’S ME. Koga thinks he’s an idiot, wasting breath for saying the same thing twice, and tunes the rest of their (really fucking boring) conversation out, until Narukami says something like (making an obnoxiously cutesy pose), _If my charms are irresistible for Rei-chan, don’t you think it’ll work on Kunugi-sensei too? ♥_. Ricchi fake-pukes over his desk and tells Narukami he’s out from Knights for having a shitty taste, Micchan gets a bit wall-eyed, trying to look both at Narukami and Koga, and Koga, as always, doesn’t give a shit and bites soundly into his pencil.

End of flashback.

The train stops and he gets off, already sorta pissed, and that makes him even more pissed, because he was supposed to check if he remembers everything about the project correctly, and not think about stupid things. He shrugs (there’s still some time left, and they’ll probably do a last rehearsal before the classes start) and tries not to think about anything, to clear his mind.

Oh, a dog. He smiles at the dog, and the dog wags at him. Soul connection established.

 

* * *

 

 

Actually, another flashback, for good measure:

Koga is a second year in junior high, and freshly after his fourteenth birthday, two friends take him to a Yumenosaki Academy. It’s an idol school, see, but today there’s a rock event, Asano says, and my sister told me to go and buy that one dude she loves’ merch. Futaba and Koga make a pained noise of compassion, because little sisters are sooo annoying (even though Koga is an only child). Asano adds that maybe it won’t be that bad, because she made him watch some of the stuff and the dude’s good. Not like those other idols who do cutesy shit, jump a bit and call it hard work, but like, actually _good_ good. Koga hums, because he still kinda doubts an idol can know anything about true rock, but doesn’t say anything.

“Must be some pretty boy, huh”, Futaba says in reaction to the crowds. Koga has seen some local idol events, in TV or passing by, but never such a big crowd and he briefly wonders if they’re not giving out free food somewhere. That, or the dude must indeed be a pretty boy.

He is.

As in, objectively, probably, from a girl’s perspective. He is tall, has legs, face, such things. And Koga knows how idols behave on stage; _I hope everyone had fun, I’m so happy to see so many people! Wow!_ All this stuff about pleasing the audience. But Sakuma Rei isn’t like that, if anything, he’s the polar opposite – acting as if the audience was here to please him, basking in the weak light of the glowsticks and screams of the fans. Koga would think it’s obnoxious if he wasn’t so good, handsome, with all his legs and face, confident, voice and body strong and mesmerizing. Koga feels something stir in his chest. Must be admiration.

He takes in a breath.

“We know, amazing”, Futaba cuts in before he even starts talking, and Asano sighs in a tired mother way, but then grins bashfully; he has his own bromide in his school bag and isn’t that much better. “You’ve said this like seven times after the live ended, fifteen times in the line and two after we bought the stuff, and that makes it–”

“That makes it the time when you should shut the hell up”, Koga says and it doesn’t make much sense, but he’s got a bromide and an A4 poster and he’s not sure if he’s got any pocket money left, so he needs to protect himself before either Asano or Futaba decide a bowl of ramen would be good right now.

“May you remember my words every time you kiss that poster goodnight, Oogami”, Futaba says ominously and this time Koga kicks him straight in the shin.

An important fact: he does not, actually, kiss the poster goodnight because he doesn’t hang it, he’s too embarrassed. He does, though, look up the academy. Sakuma Rei, a demon prince (!!!) is apparently a solo artist, something that’s possible but not that common in the academy, as units have it easier. Koga spends the rest of the evening repeating _cool!!!_ in his head and out loud in at least five different tones, and if he feels weirdly giddy before looking Sakuma up on instagram (he doesn’t have an acc), it’s because, well, insert reason here.

And then – yeah, it’s true he applies to Yumenosaki because Sakuma is there. He feels stupid, barely managing to stutter his high school plan to his parents, carefully omitting the actual reason, but with the financial help of the grandparents, he gets in. His scores are painfully average on the entrance exam, but his guitar skills, for some reason, get him some nice points and places safely in the middle of the score list. After the teacher shows the class around the school, Koga remembers the way to the music club room better than the one to the toilet. He immediately submits a registration paper, even though it turns out it’s only a formality, because Sakuma Rei – now _Sakuma-senpai_ , and Koga feels a bit undescribable, realizing that – accepts him without even batting an eye.

He’s different, Koga thinks. Without the outfit he wore on stage, senpai looks like a beanpole instead of ‘tall and slim’, and after a while Koga notices his ears are big and a bit protruding. A normal person would probably get teased about it, but here, no one seems to mind. Senpai is loud, confident, and his presence always captures everyone’s attention, but he’s kind, reminding Koga of a cool university student who still hangs out with the kids because he’s not a snotty asshole. He kind of talks like a middle-aged dude, though, slipping in words and phrases his mother or father could use, and sometimes he shows a bit of a chuuni personality, calling himself a demon king, and Koga can never know if he’s serious or not, but that only makes him cooler.

Koga likes that he’s the only active member of the music club aside from its captain. Sakuma-senpai tells him that he was getting a bit bored sitting there all by himself, and that it’s good he, Koga, joined, because he was already kind of thinking about starting a secret occult club here, or something else. He already has a coffin, and Koga nearly spits out his juice when senpai shows him that it’s real, and not a model. He politely refuses when senpai offers to let him try it out.

The classes quickly turn out to be impossible to handle, everyone’s noisy and annoying, so he skips and tries to drown his guilt by telling himself that at least he’s practicing the guitar. Senpai praises him, and even though he’s cool and not too expressive with it, Koga’s cheeks grow hot with pride every time. Senpai can play the violin, piano, drums and guitar (four instruments! four!!!), so he gives Koga some advice and teaches him a bit of the drums. He lets him touch his callused hands, surprisingly larger than Koga’s own, and smiles, showing dimples deep enough to drown in.

One time they’re working on a song and Koga’s supposed to provide both guitar lines. Just doing that in the recording studio would take long, and senpai is planning to take care of the mixing, so Koga stays at school for the night.

“I’m a regular in this facility”, senpai shrugs, an amused spark in his eyes, when Koga asks him if it won’t be a problem, “They don’t give a damn as long as I don’t do anything illegal.”

His smile widens, and Koga’s chest feels like a glass full of soda pop.

And then, when they’re back in the club room, and Koga’s fingers hurt like hell but he’s satisfied, because senpai praised him and worked with him seriously and it felt so professional, they lay out the futons. Senpai sets an alarm on his phone, the screen being the only source of light in the room, and he looks otherwordly; skin smooth and silver, a slightly darker shape of his lips, eyes bright and glossy. His breath is inaudible and Koga subconsciously stops breathing himself, but even the slight air deprivation doesn’t make that tv noise in his head stop.

 _Senpai is_ , Koga thinks, and there’s a loud, heavy pause between this and the finishing thought, _so cool_. He feels as if his lungs shrunk and flattened, stuck to his back, suddenly making his ribcage feel empty, and right after that, full of fluttering echoes, like ripples in the puddle after you step in it.

He lies in the dark for quite a long time, trying to hear senpai’s breathing, and later in the morning, doesn’t even remember when exactly did he fall asleep.

 

* * *

 

 

“Stop fucking wiggling your ass”, Koga says for the second time. Akehoshi stops and turns around, hands on his hips and a pout on his face.

“Buuut, Oogami-kun!”, he says in a voice that makes shivers run down Koga’s spine, “I have to make sure I’m _really_ cute!”

“You’re not, you put in too much energy”, Ricchi sighs, and demonstrates an ass wiggle with less energy, not moving from the floor he’s sitting on.

“You’re both gross”, Koga winces. Kanzaki, also wearing shorts, long socks and a polo shirt, says nothing, the only one looking properly dead inside.

The project is not a new thing and Koga knew about it as a first year, he just didn’t think it would look like _this_. But it does: they have to pick a song to cover, preferably out of their comfort zone, to let the teachers check if they’re _versatile_ enough. Koga is so versatile that he threatens Isara with bodily harm if he picks something gross, so Isara desperatedly picks the first song on the list he sees that doesn’t have stars or hearts or LOVE in its title. It’s still by a girl group, and Koga wants to die (the name sounds badass but the song is about love anyway), but at least the choreo doesn’t include jumping and shaking your ass. He’d rather learn ballet and run around in white tights than wear pastel shorts and sing stuff like ‘hoppity hop hop I’m so cute’. He has no idea how Akehoshi could accept it so easily, but maybe someone bribed him.

“At least ya sing in Japanese”, Micchan mutters, crunching nervously, and Koga feels his teeth hurt when he sees how many candies in those cheap wrappers are scattered around him. “Yukkun had to divide the words into smaller parts ‘cause I don’t even know where one starts and where another ends.”

Fushimi smiles like a polite snake and mutters something that sounds like ‘Me neither, but I did my best’. Sakasaki just smirks. Koga winces in sympathy, but only for Micchan.

The time passes, Adonis, Yuuki and Hidaka are still in the music room and Kunugi is probably picking their performance apart, criticizing the tiniest detail like the picky ass he is. Koga hopes he won’t grade the degree to which they imitated the original, because he can’t, simply can’t sing nasally.

“Maybe he’s telling them how much they suck and that’s why it’s taking so long.” Ricchi stretches, and some part of his body lets out a disgusting crack. “That Yuu-kun looks like he could faint any time.”

“And you look like a disaster”, Sena Izumi says, appearing in the hallway along with some other third years and _oh fuck no_. Ricchi rolls his eyes and makes a disgusted face at the same time.

“Oh, but he looks adorable, doesn’t he?”, the reason of disgust says sweetly, like an idiot; Ricchi crawls away from him and honestly, _same_. “But aren’t you cold? I can give you–”

“No. Secchan’s right, I look horrible and I’d rather freeze than wear your gross clothes. Maa-kun, make him go away.”

Isara doesn’t even notice him, mouthing the lyrics and making weird small motions, as if revising the dance steps, but without bothering anyone. He gasps and almost falls when Ricchi jabs him in the knee. Narukami talks to Sena Izumi and the vampire bastard, explaining something about his jacket (sparkly, kinda feminine, kinda disgusting). Akehoshi whisper-screams at his basketball senpai to stop being so happy about his outfit and even the oshi-san dude is here, trying to convince Micchan he was dragged here (Izumi Sena turns around half-word and says pointedly that he literally had no idea he was going with them). The track & field captain bumps into Koga, apologizes, says ‘Hey, cool jacket’ and moves on to pick Narukami up like a doll and _Mama came here to support youuu!_. And that’s it.

Fine. Cool. Not like he cares.

Actually he’s even glad that no one’s bothering him, because he has time to focus properly. He’s gonna ace this shit, even if it’s embarrassing and he’ll personally murder anyone who talks about it later, but he’s gonna get the best grade and forget about it.

Or maybe, says his mind, somehow registering Sakuma-senpai’s quiet laugh even though everyone’s talking, _or maybe not_.

No, what the fuck, Koga thinks and forces his brain to do the lyrics once again. He remembers it all perfectly, just– that’s the chorus. There’s a lot of stuff before the chorus, so the hell is that, brain? How does that goddamn song start, how does–

Adonis and the others leave the room, Adonis looks unhappy, says, “It’s really cold there, I feel bad for you”, Ricchi sighs, “We feel bad for ourselves, too”. How does it start? Koga plays the intro in his head, but it changes into some other song with a similar tempo. Narukami straightens up and fixes his hair in that stupid little mirror, someone says, “Kokkun, yer okay?”, a hand, patting his head – Sakuma-senpai, looking not at him but at the wall next to his head – “Do your best, doggie”.

Koga doesn’t remember the lyrics.

 

* * *

 

 

Koga remembers the lyrics.

In the very second he’s supposed to start singing, so he’s late. His voice is quieter than it should be, and for the first half of the song he can’t make it louder. His movements are stiff and late and he recovers in second chorus, but it’s as if his voice didn’t belong to him, and he’s pretty sure he’s not smiling like he should be.

In other words, he couldn’t fuck up more.

When Kunugi’s telling him off, he can only stare at his shoes (boring, brown, polished), to the point that he gets worried and tries to make him stay after Isara and Narukami leave. He manages to run away, both from Kunugi and the other two, and he doesn’t even wish Micchan good luck. The third years are not here anymore and there’s nothing stopping him, so he goes straight back home. The train ride is quiet and mostly empty because it’s still early, so Koga sits down, fiddles with the small corgi keychain at his bag and thinks. Even though he doesn’t like thinking, that is – he’s a simple man. When he’s upset, it’s either because he’s hungry or tired, and if it’s not one of those, he ignores it.

Okay, no, that’s not true. Koga catches himself dabbling in his emotions quite often, and maybe that’s a part of being a teenager or whatever. Not feeling things, but not knowing what they are; Koga doesn’t like not knowing what he’s feeling, it makes him feel weak. If he starts, it’s really hard to stop, and it’s like wandering deeper into a dark forest, except each tree is a thing he doesn’t like in himself, or something he finds weird, or a fear he’d rather forget about. He vaguely remembers reading, once in some book, that youth is mostly about wondering if it’s the world that’s stupid, or if it’s normal while you’re the crazy one. It sounds clever, but in reality, it fucking sucks.

For… some ungodly reason… he fucked up the performance. It makes no sense, he wasn’t even nervous before, just… slightly thrown out of his usual state of mind, but that was nothing. He was nervous before that one live in summer, when Leon was sick, but that didn’t stop him from giving an amazing performance. And now, yeah, he still gets a little bit of stage fright, but he swallows it down because he’s Oogami, and he’s UNDEAD, so he’s not the one who should be scared, and so on. And yet. This thing. It happened.

And there’s the vampire. On a completely, completely unrelated note, but no less irritating.

He thinks about it more when he takes Leon out for a walk. The asshole didn’t even look at him! So. So he was unbothered, and should have performed with ease and aced everything, except for some reason he made everything worse instead. He arrives at a conclusion that it’s still the vampire bastard’s fucking fault; Koga’s so used to his constant annoying presence that without it he feels as if his routine is interrupted. Pathetic, he thinks bitterly. He’s really out of form, and on one hand, he should practice more, on the other – he should make himself immune to vampiric influences and do more stuff on his own.

Koga checks up on Leon; he’s chewing something and it doesn’t look like it’s grass, so he embarrasses himself even further today, chasing his own dog for like five minutes (Leon is radiating pure dog joy) and spends the walk back home lecturing him on how he should behave like a man and not a goddamn puppy. Leon licks his nose, very proud of himself, and keeps on trotting happily next to him.

The next day Kunugi lectures him again, this time for dozing off in class, and yeah, it might be his fault for staying up late playing rhythm games to get his mind off the project, but suggesting a visit in the infirmary was too fucking much. Sagami would probably give him some vitamin C candy and go back to sleep or whatever. Instead, even though the next break is short, Koga runs to grab an energy drink at the school store. He doesn’t like drinking them when he’s not practicing (a waste of money and potential energy), but otherwise, he’d spend the day on the verge of sleep, and that would be even worse. He’s supposed to work hard! Like a man. Improve! Be strong! And so on.

So when he comes back to the classroom, he listens to others’ conversation not because he’s a phony ass, but because he has ears, and because being aware of your surroundings is an important thing.

And also because Narukami’s loud as fuck.

“And so yesterday I learned, Mika-chan”, he sing-songs, and Koga doesn’t look that way, but he’s probably showing Micchan something on his phone, “that vampires do appear in photos!”

Micchan makes a surprised noise, Koga chokes back a scornful snort. Does Narukami not have anything better to do with his time than to hang out with idiots acting like senile old men for fun?

Ah.

Ah, oh, right. They’re.

Huh.

“And I thought he’s scary”, Micchan says, and even without looking Koga can tell he’s shaking his head in surprise. Wrong, he thinks, he’s neither scary nor cool. He’s the worst, and not even in the endearing sense. That is – he wouldn’t be anyway. The word ‘endearing’ can’t be applied to that asshole, never.

“Well, he is friends with your oshi-san, after all”, Narukami says, and Koga belatedly realizes this might be interpreted as both an insult and a praise, both to the vampire menace and the croissant man. “But he’s really, reeeally cute and you know what? He bought me this!”

Narukami giggles in a particularly annoying way and shows Micchan another thing on his phone. Micchan lets out a dreamy woaaah and they go on about desserts, and Koga – maybe it’s Narukami’s way of speaking or the general topic of the conversation, or the way they make it sound so normal – he feels something curl in his stomach. Like disgust, but not entirely; something without a name, that already feels like it’s going to spoil his mood for the day and maybe even longer. Narukami needs to shut the hell up, now and forever, and maybe not show his face to Koga for the rest of the year. It’s stupid and Koga knows that, because normally Narukami is annoying at worst, and he’s pretty strong and good at sports, and that’s cool, but now he’s–

Koga exhales the air out of his lungs, until they’re disturbingly empty, then draws in one slow, deep breath. The bell chimes, and right after that, Kunugi walks in. Koga straightens up.

* * *

 

Complaining about Sakuma Rei to an extremely uninterested Leon becomes Koga’s daily habit. It’s not planned, but somehow happens everyday. Koga goes to school normally, tries to be active during classes, practices with the twins in the club. But, according to his predictions, the ugly thing inside him doesn’t go away but rather lingers, like a toothache. Narukami still has never done anything to him, and yet Koga still, gradually, finds more and more things about him somehow irritating. Even when he’s not talking about the vampire bastard and/or their dates but about classes or Knights’ practice or literally anything else, Koga wants him to shut up, and when he’s called to the front of the classroom by Kunugi to show how to properly do something, Koga realizes he subconsciously wishes for him to fail in an embarrassing way.

Even the vampire bastard feels different, like every his word and gesture was there only to taunt Koga and show him how small and unimportant he was. One day he offers to help Koga with something in the club room, and Koga snaps at him with more force than he planned, and of course that dumb leech turns it into a joke and makes some idiotic comment about rabies, but Koga sees – or thinks he sees, and he doesn’t know which is worse – a hint of surprise on his face. He doesn’t know what it means and represses it, but when he comes back home, he realizes there might have been no taunting at all. And he feels guilt, shame and pissed of as fuck, and buries his face in Leon’s fur. Leon slithers away, fed up with Koga’s nose poking his spine, and sends him doubtful looks all evening until he gets a satisfying belly rub.

He dreams of Kunugi, informing him that wearing black socks with white uwabaki is a crime punishable by death.

 

* * *

 

Micchan yawns – so widely that for a moment Koga fear the skin on his lips will break – then rests his head on Koga’s desk and lets out a long, miserable groan.

“Same”, Koga says, and yawns himself. Damn, this shit is infectious.

“Become an idol, they said”, Micchan rasps, and Koga checks the time on his phone. If he runs very fast, it’s enough to get something to drink. If he runs. Very fast. Hhhgh. “Maybe in ten years I’ll be able to afford new legs.” Or something like that, Koga isn’t sure. “‘cause I don’t have any right now”, Micchan explains, raising his head from the desk just a little bit, then puts it back down with a bang (and lets out a quiet, pained ‘ow’).

“Nah, you’re just shitty at running”, Koga says, even though his legs own hurt like motherfucker and he probably smells like that, too. The PE teacher seemed to be in her hell mode today, making everyone, including Ricchi, run laps until ‘their legs give out under them’. Ricchi had it easy, because he fell after five laps and lied there until Akehoshi accidentally stepped on him and Isara hauled him back to the building, but Koga didn’t give up, running somehow making his mind go blank, and the teacher gave some cheerful praise to him, Adonis and Narukami.

“At least Naru-chan was fast enough to take a shower”, Micchan mumbles, and Koga grits his teeth. “‘m gonna sit here n’ stink like a madman.”

Koga snorts. “I don’t give a fuck about stinkin’”, he says, giving a fuck, though. “But you can use the shower after this class.”

“Somethin’ tells me the others have the exact same idea”, Micchan winces, and looks at Ricchi with concern. He hasn’t moved for the last ten minutes. “Damn you, Naru-chan! I mean”, he stops, raises his head and blinks a few times, as if Narukami would jump out once called and deck him straight in the mug for blasphemy, “I mean, must be cool t’ have legs made of stainless steel. Naru-chan says he doesn’t like hard work, but he must have worked a lot to get so fit. He just ran straight to the bathrooms without even stopping.” He brushes his bangs out of his forehead; some hairs are still sticking to it and Micchan really looks like a very unhappy baby raven. Koga decides to focus on that and less on what Micchan’s saying, so he only hums noncommittally. Narukami wasn’t even that great, he kept on fixing his hair and and talking to Adonis instead of running properly without wasting breath, and he started later than Koga but received more praise. Not that Koga cares about it, because he doesn’t. He doesn’t give a fuck. “Ah, ‘n he looks so good in skinny jeans! He really has the nicest legs. Well, maybe save for–”

“Yeah”, Koga interrupts, and Micchan’s jaw drops a bit; usually Koga listens to everything he has to say. Usually Koga isn’t pissed at Narukami for existing. “Cool”, he adds, and that makes him feel even worse. “Want something to drink? There’s, uh. Still some of the break left.”

Micchan looks at him for a short while, yellow and blue eyes full of focus and interest of someone who watches a chemical reaction from afar, wondering if it’ll explode this time as well. “Uh, sure”, he says finally, and blinks again, shaking his head a little. “I don’ have any–”

“‘s cool, my treat”, Koga interrupts again, digging out his wallet and putting it in his blazer pocket. He wants to be alone, save for the comforting hum of the vending machine and just as comforting taste of pocari sweat, and maybe do something with his stupid head. Micchan, he notices, doesn’t answer, unlike the last time Koga offered to get him a stupid bottle of water; he would protest and say it’s okay until Koga shoved it into his hands. It’s not right, Koga thinks

–and in this exact moment, Narukami passes him by in the classroom door.

He only manages to open his mouth before Koga sends him what feels like the most vicious look and storms out. He hates Narukami, hates him and his nicest stainless steel legs that look good in skinny jeans, along with his amazing hair, white teeth and desk-throwing, manicured hands. Hates that he’s so stupidly nice, what for, for fuck’s sake, that he’s lazy and behaves like a stupid girl and everyone likes him anyway, that it works well enough to get him a boyfriend, not that Koga gives a fuck, because he doesn’t, it’s just that both Narukami and his boyfriend are twice as annoying and Koga can’t stop thinking about the extent of how annoying they are, not to mention that every breath Narukami takes feels – again – like a personal jab, and every single smile of his is like an element of a detailed plot, an attempt to make everyone believe how amazing Narukami is how much better he looks compared to Koga.

He gets that pocari sweat, but something in his limbs is suddenly heavy and he crouches by the wall instead of hurrying back to the classroom. He thinks about Micchan, who probably forgot about Koga and his promised pocari, and about Narukami, who probably distracted and/or still is distracting Micchan with his legs and basking in the state of having a boyfriend. Koga suddenly realizes he never read the list of ingredients on the label. Sugar, of course. Another sugar. Fruit juice, huh, that’s a surprise. Salt?

His limbs are still ridiculously heavy, mind buzzing with that shitty emotion like a wasp in an empty can of coke, but he gets up and starts walking. The class will start in like a minute, meaning he’ll be late, meaning Kunugi will make a fuss again, meaning: it’s not worth it, and if he gets to the other building, he should be able to easily get to the rooftop and sit this class out without anyone bothering him. Skipping class and not leaving the school, Koga thinks, is even more pathetic than skipping class to go on dates.

Now skipping class on the rooftop, as it turns out, is the epitome of pathetic, especially when it’s mid November. It’s not truly cold, yet, and you can run comfortably, relying on the heat of your own body to warm you up, but sitting in one place, still sweaty, is an one-way ticket to catching a cold. Koga curls on the bench and stares at the bottle. Back in the building, it was pleasantly cool, now he kind of wants to hurl it as far as he can. If he could, he’d gladly make his brain follow. He feels weird and regrets more things he’s done this week than in the last three months. Micchan did nothing wrong. Narukami as well, strictly logically speaking… Something in Koga rebels against the unfinished part of the sentence, but it has to be said: Narukami really did nothing wrong. And yet, when he thinks about him and his– the entirety of him, he wants to make it a flying trio. The bottle – his brain – Narukami. In this order. Three is a magical number.

Every time he tries to think about it (not about the number three, but about Narukami, although–), he enters a minefield, or a quicksand of sorts. There are thoughts that should not be analyzed, the way math homework shouldn’t be started, because starting it might make you realize you actually suck at math. So Koga tries to do the homework without opening the book. Sits in one place, thinking I NEED TO DO THE HOMEWORK, and does not, fully aware of the consequences, do the homework. Keeps thinking about the homework and doesn’t let himself even look at the notes. And.

And actually, even though he’s clever as fuck – you could probably say he’s kind of a genius – actually, Koga hates similes. Metaphors. Or whatever they’re called. He also hates himself, Narukami, the weather in mid November, November in general, rooftops and liquid sugars.

He takes a big gulp, chokes, swears a lot and goes back to the building. There’s an unused changing room behind one of the toilets on first floor.

 

* * *

 

 

Leon whines. Koga, being a mature and responsible owner, whines back.

Leon doesn’t seem impressed and tries again, but Koga is too busy staring deep into the swirls of cooking pasta and doesn’t answer, so he plops down on his bed and pouts, head between short paws. Koga, if he was a dog, would probably do the same.

Actually, he wouldn’t even need to be a dog.

Koga realizes, trying one noodle (too hard yet), that today’s music club practice was really weird. Or: he felt weird, though to be honest, lately he’s been feeling weird during practice a lot. One time in junior high he was so frustrated with acne that he got some ‘face mask’ from his mother’s drawer and used it, and even after he carefully washed it all off, his skin still felt tight and… _there_. And usually people aren’t hyperconscious of their skin, probably. That’s how he’s been feeling; hyperconscious of his own presence. At a place that should be a second home to him, at this point. It’s just – the vampire was already up when he arrived, using his coffin as a table to rest his laptop on, but currently on a break, smiling at his phone. _Smiling_ – Koga felt, and still feels, it deserves to be repeated – at his _phone_. He kept on smiling through the practice, and almost didn’t make fun of him. Still called him a doggie, but talked to him like one polite human being would talk to another, not like anything he’s ever done to him. He was nice in the widely understood meaning of the word. Anyone else would be satisfied, but Koga only grew suspicious, and, even though he’d never say that to anyone, ever – that dude was even _less_ the old Sakuma-senpai. The one who pet his head and joked about throwing him a ball was a piece of shit, but sometimes, something would shine through, that unique smile or a tone of voice. But this one had all the edges polished and soft, more like a stranger than anyone Koga would willingly associate with.

Koga has… has. An idea why.

He grimaces. Thinking about Narukami only makes him angry, but then, Narukami has been very present lately. Loud. Everywhere. Hard not to think about. It’s annoying and Koga would love to turn it off before it starts for good, but he can’t. His mind goes to Narukami and he feels disturbed, not right, and he needs to redirect it; except usually it goes to the vampire bastard. Like they’re some sort of a two-in-one deal.

 _Ah_.

He sighs, stirs the water and tries one noodle again, even though it’s still way too early for it to be ready (and it’s not). He vaguely remembers that this type of pasta is supposed to be cooked for a bit longer than five minutes and goes back to his room to. Do things, probably, to kill time. But he can’t pick a thing to do, and everything – reading a comic, cleaning his guitar, dusting the shelves off, making the bed – makes him feel all heavy, like an unpleasant chore. He decides to fall on the bed, face down; the cover immediately gets warmed up by his breath and he turns his head. Leon, having followed him to the room, rests his front paws on the edge of the bed, clearly wanting to jump on it, but hesitating, since Koga’s starfish position doesn’t leave him much place to sit. Koga moves his leg with great effort and observes as Leon first prepares for the jump (paws going tap tap tap on the floor), then jumps and lies down, tightly pressed against his thigh.

Koga reaches out and Leon automatically moves forward, putting his head under Koga’s palm. It’s so goddamn _nice_ of him, Koga thinks as his fingers scratch behind Leon’s ear. Leon is so good for him – like a loving, four-legged heater with really big ears and even bigger love for eating weird shit outside – even though he doesn’t feel he deserves it, as stupid as it sounds. Koga feels bad, and everyone else is good (including his own dog, and he barely stops himself from being salty about that, like some idiot), and that makes him feel even worse. It’s really stupid and even more embarrassing, but others are insert amazing trait and he isn’t, and that pisses him off, and then he’s mad at himself for being, what? Envious? Stupid? So weak that his mother would weep if she saw him?

He hates feeling like that, mostly because he knows it’s not true. That is – the smarter part of his brain knows it, the stupid part is the one that adds _but what if it is_ , and fucking ruins everything. Koga knows he’s skilled; he’s worked his ass off to become the idol he is now, his fingers are a living proof of how many hours he’s spent practicing the guitar, and if it comes to school grades, he gets by, somehow. Besides, an idol doesn’t have to have perfect grades, what’s more important is how people see you. No one cares if you don’t know shit about math if you have charisma, and maybe Koga isn’t Hakaze, who can wink and make a bunch of girls scream, even though he’s a lazy piece of shit, but it’s not like he’s hated either.

So he’s fine. Fucking amazing, even, and there’s no fucking need to have those dumb teenager thoughts. Koga definitely isn’t worse than the others, and in most fields, self worth awareness included, he’s actually much better.

 _But_ , the stupid part of his brain supplies helpfully, _you don’t have a boyfriend._

 _And???????????_ , the smarter part replies, justifiably dumbfounded, because honestly, the fuck, _I don’t want one??? I Don’t Care???_

_But Sakuma-senpai is_

Koga inhales sharply.

No.

Okay,

 _no_ ,

No, and also,

ｎｏ．

Koga grits his teeth and curls up, tight, and feels his heart throbbing in every possible part of his anatomy, in the disgusting way. Disgust, right, this is disgust, this is what causes him to press his palm against his mouth, hard enough to leave marks on his face. This is–

– frankly speaking, the math homework metaphor doesn’t apply anymore, because homework doesn’t punch you in the gut when you don’t pay attention to it. Koga breathes out, and then in again, repeating _no no no_ in his head in a childish hope that maybe if he says it enough, the bad thing will go away. It doesn’t; it’s too big and deep, filling his chest and threatening to crawl out further and fill the rest of his body too. Koga’s pissed, more than a thousand Kunugis could ever be, because – it was predictable. Entirely predictable, and now if he got rid of it earlier, then maybe. Then maybe.

He presses both hands against his entire face and Leon stirs by his side; Koga only absentmindedly notes his presence and attempts not to kick him off the bed when he turns onto the other side, trying not to breathe, move or make any sounds. _No_ is replaced by _fuck_.

In one swift and very dramatic move Koga crawls deeper onto the bed and buries his face in the pillow. Against everything he’s told himself a moment ago, he feels stupid and pathetic, humiliation filling his lungs. It wasn’t even supposed to happen, it shouldn’t have– it should never happen, and yet it did. Probably in the very beginning, and back then he was too stupid to notice it, and later, he was. He was also too stupid to confront it somehow, push it aside in a more effective way, just do anything not to be dealing with it now, when the circumstances look like that, and when he, they–

Koga makes a sound. The water in the pot, probably overflowing, makes a sound too, and they’re both very pathetic. Leon rustles around a bit, then jumps off the bed.

( _mine._ )

 

* * *

 

 

In the end, after cleaning the stove, cleaning the pot, trying to eat the overcooked pasta (but failing, because it was honestly gross), giving up and getting chicken nuggets from the conbini nearby, Koga spends a considerable amount of time hating himself, hating himself for hating himself, hating Narukami, then Sakuma-senpai, then hating Narukami and admitting that Sakuma-senpai wasn’t at fault, then the opposite, because Narukami did nothing wrong but Sakuma-senpai was the source of all evil in the world.

And then wondering if maybe it was all his own, personal fault for even going to Yumenosaki – and then, thank gods, he comes to senses and smacks himself on the head for being a wimp. Sure, everything is horrible and he wants to disappear off the face of the earth, but it’s not going to stop him from… doing his thing. Existing.

Like, welp. Fuck. A thing happened. The thing he’s been more or less consciously repressing for years finally grew strong enough to resurface. He’s been. He’s been. In love. With the vampire fuck and he fully allowed himself to accept that only when Narukami laid his pretty moisturized hands on him. That somehow makes it worse, even though from a logical point of view Koga doesn’t have a chance at. At the thing Narukami is doing now. Because the vampire is still Sakuma-senpai, and Sakuma-senpai is amazing. He sleeps with a fridge full of ham, but he’s amazing, and only picks what’s the best. So Koga wants to dismember Narukami, but also thinks he must be kind of amazing. Only kind of, because in lots of other areas, Koga is better. If it was something else, like grades, losing would only fire him up; he’d kick a few walls, frustrated, but he’d work on getting better, and he’d beat Narukami.

But this is different, and Koga has absolutely zero experience in this kind of stuff, but stealing people’s boyfriends seems like one of the most dickish moves to exist. So he’ll hold it in. Hold it in, and only think about hurting Narukami like once a week.

 

* * *

 

Koga thinks about hurting Narukami the second he walks into the classroom; a thing that’s both disappointing and absolutely predictable.

Narukami and Micchan are leaning over Narukami’s desk and chatting, as usual, and once they notice Koga, they stop talking, as usual, but what follows after isn’t a Hello! or Good morning!, but silence.

A short silence, in which Micchan blinks and has the guts to look – guilty? stressed? – and Narukami stares straight into Koga’s eyes like a weirdly stylish owl, but a silence anyway. They do greet him, after the two awkward seconds that feel like two hours instead, and Koga greets them back, but it feels off.

He doesn’t have much more time to think about it, because Isara arrives, humming some girl group song with his eyes slightly wider than normally. That means he’s stressed as fuck, so Koga shrugs, answers when Isara calls the roll and tries to participate in the class a bit. After the bell rings, Isara (more) and Fushimi (less) storm out of the classroom (starfes is soon), Ricchi flops on his desk gently, with the air of a person who goes to sleep after a day full of work (absolutely didn’t happen), and Narukami and Micchan, Koga assumes, continue their interrupted talk, except now they’re almost whispering. Koga doesn’t feel left out, nope, not at all.

Koga sees Narukami with a phone way often than before, and he doesn’t have to be a genius to know that he’s using it to message the vampire fuck. The fuck who actually lingers near the 2-B classroom a few times, again with fucking Narukami, and one time Koga can hear them whisper-arguing, but when they see him, both start talking about some restaurant in normal volume.

(At some point, Adonis puts a very worried hand on his shoulder and asks if he’s alright in that sincerely worried voice of his. Koga assures him that everything’s fucking amazing, then continues to glare daggers at every person, object and piece of furniture in the room for the rest of the practice.)

One day the fuck randomly drops by with Kiryuu, wearing what seems like two scarves and a jacket, waving a black wallet; he asks if ‘anyone want anything’ and when Ricchi replies with ‘Yeah, for you to die’, he makes a hurt face and says Sagami only gave him three thousand yen, probably as an attempt to be funny. Isara actually requests something, Koga doesn’t pay that much attention to know what, but when he writes something on a paper Kiryuu gives him (probably a shopping list from all the lazy fucks who’d rather make use of the fact someone else is running errands for a teacher than go to the school store themselves) and gives him the money, the hellish leech looks up from shamelessly looking through Sagami (?)’s wallet and grimaces directly at Koga. Presses his lips together and looks away right after. Narukami rolls his eyes and Koga feels a bit like someone very weak kicked him in the stomach.

He bites his lip, fishes out his wallet and makes a firm beeline to the door. Maybe there’s some yakisoba bread left.

 

* * *

 

Koga dislikes the situation.

(This is an understatement, but an acceptable one.)

Gradually, his hate towards Narukami sizzles down to just a fairly strong dislike, and only when he’s particularly loud in his presence. After all, Koga’s passionate only when there are obstacles that can be changed. When pocari sweat’s price went up, he grumbled and stared at the vending machine, glowing serenely, with disgust, for like a week, but that was it. Narukami isn’t going to break up with discount Dracula if Koga glares at him hard enough, so he chills. Attempts to chill. Mostly fails, but the intent is here.

The reason is that Koga’s mind, once it dealt with denial and anger phases, shifted straight to the acceptance; not peace of mind, but acceptance of what’s happening.

In other words, Koga finds the vampire fuck hot. And now that he knows that, if feels even more and even worse, because he suddenly realizes the strange zone he was in during the Dead Mans’ live might not have been the sudden surge of admiration. At all. It might have been because Sakuma Rei was hot as the very fucking core of hell back then.

It feels weird to admit that, to have feelings for someone in general, because that sounds a bit like a weakness, not to mention he’d be fucked if someone found out. Once he notices it, he can’t stop having Thoughts, and it’s even easier than, say, buying chips even though he told himself not to, because he doesn’t even have to do anything. He just sees the dude, with his eyes he has always with him, very conveniently stuck in his skull, and thinks, with his brain, again, always here. A mix of studying the bromide he’s brought with him from home and coexisting with the real thing makes him realize that for example, one of his cheek dimples is slightly deeper than the other, or that his eyelashes are pretty short, or that his thighs are still toned, or that his waist is pretty slim, which shouldn’t be that fascinating considering he’s a dude and has anaemia, but for some reason, it is. The first two facts make him angry, the last two make him lose focus during classes. Kunugi threatens him with sending him to Sagami, Sagami smacks him on the head, one floor up, the shitty leech is probably being unreasonably a. Fucking. Attractive for no reason, and Koga can’t do shit about it.

Being in the same club room as him after classes predictably doesn’t help at all, because even though Koga has his guitar and stuff to practice, he’s still aware that the vampire is sitting by the coffin (since apparently working _in_ the coffin makes his knees and back hurt) and editing the songs. Sighing, tapping his fingers on the keyboard/coffin/his knee, chewing his lip. At some point Koga risks taking a single look in his direction and the exasperated look he sends his laptop, eyelids low and lips pressed together, looks way more _what the fuck, brain_ than it should.

It gets worse when he’s going back to class, cradling a bag of yakisoba bread to his chest, and Sagami calls out to him and tells to haul this idiot here (an exaspeated nod at the vampire, looking fairly more vampiric than usually) to his office, get him to eat something, just not his donut, and either finish or hide his beer, because he has a charming meeting with Kunugi and he absolutely, heavy sarcasm, can’t miss it, end of the heavy sarcasm that gently hints at Kunugi not exactly approving of the beer.

“It’s not really that bad”, fucker says, despite the location and Sagami’s firm grasp heavily suggesting that he’s probably fainted and almost fucked down the stairs.

“You’re almost transparent”, Koga scoffs, to which this idiot only shrugs and says that well, he’d never say no to a free nap, so.

Koga has a feeling he’s been saying no to both a nap and food for quite a while, but doesn’t comment on that. What has that Narukami been doing? He should take care of his dumb. Idiot. More.

The vampire wants to make his tea, but Koga slaps his hand away and (feeling the place their hands touched burn for a while after, like it was a shoujo fucking manga) does it himself instead. Sagami has quite a comfortable office, even for a school nurse, with a kettle, a cupboard (cup ramen, cookies) and a fridge (rice balls, beer, medicines) and three beds, and years of being a regular here made the vampire act like it was his home. He opens the window, even though it’s December already, and probably stares at the ocean like an idiot. Koga isn’t better, staring at the way his hair dances lightly in the wind, but at least he eventually snaps out of it and tells him to shut the fucking window or at least open it _just a bit_. He knows that even a stupid cold is a near death experience for his dumb senpai and wonders if Narukami knows it too. Because he should.

He makes him tea, throws a yakisoba pan at him and tells him to sleep, trying to ignore the things his heart does in reaction to senpai taking off his uniform blazer and cardigan and looking both fragile and _!!!_ in his white shirt and nothing under it. He tries to chase it out of his thoughts for the rest of the day, this as well as the whispery ‘thank you’ he hears right before closing the door, as well as the line of his body under the white covers, and the result is that in the evening, he closes his eyes and imagines his hands aren’t his anymore. He switches the water in the shower to coldest and almost gets hypothermia, but the guilt is still there.

The next day he finds a yakisoba bread in his desk, the big one like they sell only in the early morning, along with a small note. His heart does another stupid thing as he recognizes the handwriting; then, because that’s seriously too much, he’s a dude, for fuck’s sake, he bangs his head on the desk apparently one second after Kunugi asks him a question.

Kunugi doesn’t bother asking about his health and simply kicks him outta the classroom.

 

* * *

 

 

Koga feels a bit dizzy, and it’s not because he’s particularly tired or sick or whatever. The MV shooting – the last thing before they got a few days actually off – was an easy job. They only had to do retakes twice, and they got food, so much food that he packed some to eat later, ecouraged by the restaurant staff. The kids from Ryuuseitai were a bit weird, but it wasn’t anything new, just like Anzu pretending she’s very into fixing his collar (perfectly in its place, thanks a lot) to make Hakaze leave her the fuck alone.

It’s just that, Koga has to admit – kinda irritated, because it’s been a while since the revelation, and because March is soon – it’s just that, Sakuma-senpai. No, vampire bastard. _No_ , today it was Sakuma-senpai.

Who vanishes mysteriously as soon as they arrive back at the school, that lazy asshole, and they have to put all the stuff back into place without his help. Koga doesn’t care. It’s slightly before midnight, everyone’s a bit tired, and quietly carrying things helps Koga not focus on him right now. At least that’s the official version he tells himself; the truth is that when no one’s paying attention to him, it’s easier to do think about him without the risk of being teased. As long as he manages not to blush like an idiot.

Because: Sakuma-senpai was something tonight. Sort of loose, less of a poor excuse for an old man and more, a tiny bit more like a normal person, who just occasionally happens to sleep in a coffin. Koga had already forgotten how… _alright_ he looked in that deep shade of purple (plum?) and today he was forcefully reminded of that. They all wore more or less the same thing, but somehow senpai looked the best in it, with the purple doing something with the contrast between his black hair and pale skin. Maybe it was the cool tone. Koga doesn’t know fuck about colors, but ‘cool’ sounds right. Cool was what senpai looked like, when the lights framed his face that one way that made Koga avert his eyes, and when he smiled at that ninja kid and his dimples showed up. Okay, that wasn’t cool anymore, that was the worst.

And the thing with the cocktail, when Akehoshi’s captain got all worked up about senpai’s drink, blue with a small cherry in it, apparently containing alcohol, and then the puka puka dude bapped senpai on the head and told off for fooling around, because the drink had not even a drop of booze in it. Except when Ryuuseitai switched their attention to their own plates, senpai downed the drink, ate the cherry and visibly satisfied, picked up another glass, hidden comfortably on the table behind his back. His smile only widened slowly when he noticed Koga’s eyed on him, again with those dumb dimples, and then he – he winked, for fuck’s sake, and Koga could only scoff, because he honestly had no words for that.

“Oogami, give me that chair.”

Koga jumps slightly, as if he was some character from a comedy manga, and then of all the things he could say, he says ‘No, it’s mine’. Having the Ryuuseitai first years’ attention on himself, he carries the goddamn thing entire fucking ten steps and sets it down, then walks away to get more, quite casually for someone who’s been standing with a chair in the middle of the hall like an idiot and thinking about. Stuff. Things.

“I, uh”, he starts, and a second later it occurs him that no one else aside from Adonis was awake enough to care, “was wondering what to have for dinner tonight.”

(Stunned sleepy silence.)

_You have three tons of that shit in a box, idiot!!!_

“And also”, he continues, in a pathetic but brave attempt to save his dignity, “Leon probably made a mess in my room because I forgot to close the door in the morning. I. Just remembered that.”

Adonis sends him a concerned look and Koga knows him well enough to see the deeply hidden exasperation. “Don’t eat too much this late, Oogami. And get some good sleep.”

_Sod off, dude. I love you, but do that._

Nagumo shakes his head and mutters something about senpai’s stomach’s capability being amazing.

“Yeah”, Koga says, and that’s the last thing that comes out of his mouth before fifteen minutes later they conclude everything’s done and start preparing to leave. Adonis offers to escort Anzu home and she looks at him as if he made it rain diamonds. The others return to their classrooms to pick up their stuff, so he does the same. Someone, probably Ricchi, has left a bento box on the windowsill, but it’s empty, so Koga leaves it be, closes the door and runs to the club room to get his guitar. If he’s lucky enough, he’ll make it for one of the last trains.

He gets in, turns on the light and makes a beeline to the chair his guitar’s on, so he notices him only when he’s turning to leave.

The vampire menace is sitting on the floor, resting his back against the coffin and probably asleep, even though that position can’t be comfortable. His head is cocked to the side, cheek squished against the edge of the coffin. When he wakes up, he’s going to have a deep mark on his dumb face, in addition to a sore neck, Koga thinks. And then: he looks like a kid. And: he’s nineteen, the magical age between being an adult and being a teenager.

Maybe he should wake him up, because hell, he should be at home.

Koga realizes he has no idea about senpai’s family situation. Or house situation, or whatever. He can’t remember him ever saying anything last year, and he wouldn’t forget something as important as that. He only vaguely recalls that minimal grimace that appears on his face when Hasumi’s going on about not wanting to disappoint his parents, and he still doesn’t know what to make out of it. It could mean literally everything, but then, why does senpai stay at school every night? He was scared to ask as a first year; for a while he was convinced it’s all just his imagination and that senpai is simply coming to school very early – until he saw him leaving the bathroom on the third floor with wet hair and a towel around his neck.

Koga stares, and feels something tighten in his chest, a bit painfully.

No, he’s not going to be an idiot, he’s not. It’s not a stupid anime. He has better things to do and a train to catch, and some self-worth to rebuild.

He kneels down on the floor in front of senpai and lightly puts a hand on his shoulder. There’s no sound other than his heartbeat drumming in his ears, a strong signal that he should get a goddamn grip.

Hand on shoulder. Good. You got it, Oogami. Now shake.

Koga, however, doesn’t shake.

Instead – because it turns out if you’re an idiot, then you are one, regardless of how many times you tell yourself you’re not – he kisses senpai on the lips, careful so as not to even breathe.

It’s not really an actual kiss, though, because kisses are supposed to be mutual, wet and open-mouthed and Koga isn’t going to attempt that on someone who’s sleeping because he’s not a fucking creep, not to mention he’s never kissed anyone before. He touches, not even presses, his closed mouth against senpai’s lips, and stays like this for a while, carefully examining the feeling. More than senpai’s lips, he realizes how hot his own are, and even though the nerves have already made his body temp go up, the realization that he’s really doing it makes him even warmer. He feels vague sleepiness and comfort, similar to the one you get when your cheek touches the pillow after a tiring day, and even his hands are hot. It’s not even a true kiss, but it feels good, so much that he starts having thoughts he definitely shouldn’t have–

His breath catches and he moves away, because breathing on a sleeping person’s face often ends up tickling them awake, and the statistically high as fuck chance of that happening makes him realize, once again, how much of an idiot he is.

And there it goes, because of course: eyes opening and widening in surprise, then an inhale, actually audible.

Koga falls on his ass gracelessly; for a moment he stares right into those eyes and thinks they’re fucking nice; that’s what prompts him to get up, grab his guitar and leave, almost tripping on his own useless gay feet, pressing the guitar to his chest like a really big and unfortunately shaped child and a hand to his mouth, muffling curses. He did it, he decided to be a headass instead of doing what he should do, and he got what he deserved. The vampire fuck knows Koga kissed him. Even though Narukami wasn’t subtle at all, gushing about their dates like a stupid girl. Koga probably looks like an asshole now. And senpai is probably disgusted; Koga doesn’t know why would he be, in theory, since he himself is dating a dude, but something tells him he totally is.

Koga changes his shoes, puts the guitar case on his back and bolts for fucking life.


	2. Chapter 2

Rei closes the door, stops in the genkan and puts his bags down.

He doesn’t even need to announce he’s back, because as he’s learned on multiple occasions, no one will answer anyway, being busy, in another room or Ritsu.

“How was school today?”

Or not really.

He kicks off his shoes, picks up the bags and enters the living room. His mother is watching the TV, her face almost white in the reflected light, so focused that for a while Rei wonders if he didn’t just imagine her calling out. Or maybe she just forgot about the existence of the larger half of her offspring and assumed it was Ritsu, bending the time and coming home again. Rei wouldn’t be that surprised, even for a mother of more than one child, she called them wrong names and scolded Ritsu for something Rei did painfully often, even though Rei used to be a ball of energy and it could be safely assumed that whatever got broken, lost or damaged in any other way was his job, and Ritsu rarely moved voluntarily.

Technically, the safest option would be to ignore the situation, go upstairs and wallow in frustration a little, but oh, school today.

_School today_.

_I kissed a boy_ , he thinks rebelliously, even though the truth was that the boy kissed him – and ran away seconds after that happened, but that was less important, albeit still problematic.

And then, out of the weirdest kind of spite, he thinks of the most potentially scandalous thing he can procure in his head; about how just a few hours ago, he (absolutely illegally) consumed alcohol while underage in front of his even more underage juniors, then noticed how deliciously one of them looks, healthy torso wrapped in a black waistcoat, then, in a completely obvious and logical order of things, carefully imagined unwrapping said torso, and testing the general healthiness of the boy like _so_.

Predictably, she doesn’t even budge, because people usually can’t read minds. Something on the screen happens and Rei can hear the nonexistent audience laughing. The corner of her mouth twitches, or maybe it’s just the light.

“Nice”, he says to the void in the end. “We had a live”, he adds, and then, even though it doesn’t matter and isn’t even true, “I already ate.”

It would be very like shoujo manga if he went upstairs, dropped all the bags by the door and fell face first on the bed, heart fluttering properly – but it doesn’t happen. Maybe he’s finally going crazy, or too tired to think logically, either way for now, he puts his stuff where it should be put for now (laptop on the desk, bags by the door) and cleans up a little. If he doesn’t do it before going to sleep, he’ll end up existing in the same unwashed shirt for the entire winter break. He changes from his uniform into the first t-shirt he can find (one of his three KNIGHTS SAKUMA RITSU fan t-shirts, pale blue with white text, doing absolute wonders in terms of making him look even more like a dead body, but brotherly support is brotherly support) and some loose pants. He could get some new white shirts; the sweat stains in his current one seem so at home that they should start paying the tuition at this point.

He turns the laptop on to check if it didn’t get damaged during the train ride home, then picks the most used clothes from the bag and loads the washing machine in the bathroom. It seems Ritsu had the same idea, but forgot – or didn’t want to – hang the laundry, so Rei does that for him.

He sits on the floor, rests his chin on his hands and watches the mass of clothes rotate in the washing machine, just like he used to when he was a kid. It was the only thing, aside from banging on the piano and running wherever his legs carry him, that would, at some point, use his limitless energy/keep him in one place/make him less of a nuisance. He knew his parents didn’t like it when he was making noise or going off somewhere without their knowledge, so sometimes he sat in the bathroom on the first floor for hours. He was always so sure it would be okay, but mom would still get angry, either about him wasting water and washing one toy, or because she didn’t see him sitting there and almost stepped on her own child.

The sound of water feels – Rei isn’t as good at words as UNDEAD lyrics make it seem – kind of sweet and slippery, and Rei shudders. Koga kissed him, and if he focuses, he can still feel his hot lips on his own. Narukami-kun told him to ‘report as soon as anything, _wink_ , happens’, even though Rei expressed his doubts regarding anything happening at all, ever, thank you for your concern though, and now, in this situation, he wants to both melt into the floor and desperately ask someone what the hell does that mean. Because: it certainly can’t mean _that_. Koga was tired. Experimenting. Mistook him for someone else. Lost a bet. Someone paid him?

Narukami-kun would probably gouge his eyes for thinking that. If he knew. Currently, he doesn’t know, and maybe it’s for the best.

Rei thinks about Koga. The one from the photo on the desk, taken on the last day of their joint training camp with Ra*bits. Koga has his arm on Adonis-kun’s shoulder and he’s smiling so widely that you can see his pink gums. He’s wet, like almost everyone on the photo (courtesy of Tenma-kun) and his tanned face is slightly flushed; he’s been chasing the first years. Rei’s spent so much time looking at the photo that now he could redraw it from memory; Koga’s round, smiling face and these charming wrinkles on his nose are hard not to look at. Even more so when Rei remembers when both he and Adonis-kun took their shirts off and raced to find out who could catch a fish first. Adonis-kun won, but Koga didn’t give up and stood patiently until one fish swam close enough for him to grab. His triumphant scream was so loud that it scared one of the first years, not to mention other fish in the river. The teachers quickly told both of them to get dressed and help with the food, and Rei sat under that tree, face burning as if he slept in full sunlight for hours.

And that Koga, bright, warm and pure like the water he was playing in, with body you can only adore on your knees, that Koga was–

The door opens abruptly and Rei jumps; Ritsu makes a face as if he wants to say something not exactly kind, but decides not to. Probably figures he’d be only wasting breath.

“Mom said to tell you there’s still some curry left if you’re hungry, and that she’s disappointed because you didn’t even say hello after being absent for so long.”

Rei raises his head, blinks. Ritsu still looks ready to conk out right now, right here, so he’s not making it up. Rei briefly wonders if their mother is doing it on purpose. Probably. 

Ritsu stifles a yawn, then looks at Rei and sighs, like an exasperated parent who’s just caught their child doing something bad, but there’s a glint in his eye that usually means something really–

“You’re all red. Were you jacking it again?”

“ _Ritsu!!!_ ”

 

Rei finds out they have a dog in the one true way of finding out about the existence of a small dog nearby, in other words – stumbles on it.

“This is Nozomi, apparently”, Ritsu says, shrugging, as Rei offers his hand for the puppy to sniff. It seems he’s accepted, but not exactly forgiven, because the small white cloud of a dog bites on his middle finger. “And mom got it from a friend. I don’t know if she bought it or if the friend really gave away an expensive dog like this, but I don’t really care. She keeps on peeing on the floor.”

Rei feels a sudden surge of tender feelings towards her.

Ritsu makes the best of the opportunity and bails shamelessly, either to message Isara-kun or binge-watch anime, leaving Rei with a puppy he had no idea existed until ten minutes ago. Rei shrugs, gently picks up the dog and goes downstairs; his mother is still watching TV.

“Oh, you noticed”, she says, finally looking at him. It’s not exactly a surprise that she only tears her eyes off the screen to vaguely tell him off, as if Nozomi (name longer than the dog itself, Rei thinks) was here for years and he’s only realized that now.

“Does she have an, um”, he starts, looking for a term in his head, and also looking for a way to ask _are you sure you’re fully aware this is a dog and not a toy_ without prompting a fifteen minutes long lecture about how _i put my whole life into raising you and you still don’t respect me_ , “Health records?”

“Why wouldn’t she?”, his mother gives him a look and sighs, and Rei feels his chest tighten. It was the _dear gods, what have I done to deserve such a horrendously stupid child_ sigh.

Rei nods, even though his mother is back to watching the TV already, and loiters around the kitchen for a while. Ritsu said there was curry, but Rei’s not sure if he’s in the mood to eat, so he drinks half a glass of water (it tastes like metal) and climbs the stairs back to his room, picking Nozomi up on the way.

He lies down and places her on his chest. She inspects his face curiously, her soft sniffing and tiny whiskers tickle his chin and he can’t help smiling. He’d already die for her, as it usually happens with him and small animals, especially those that bite.

“We gotta get you out of here”, he whispers, and the puppy pays special attention to his moving lips. “You’re going to end up as a puppy-shaped doll here. I’m gonna show you my coffin, how does it sound, hm?” Apparently delightful, as she rests her paws on his face and tries to bite his nose.

It’s pathetic, really, how strange he feels being in his own house. Usually people like it, he thinks, and students wait for the winter break to start rather than end. But Rei doesn’t. He prefers the school, where he’s thought about dying and cried for countless times, where the only teacher that seems to more or less get him is Sagami, and he shows that by letting him drink his beer, and where warm water is everywhere but not in the bathroom on the third floor and he always remembers it the very second before the ice cold stream hits his skin. The coffin, that stupid coffin, feels more like safe home than his own Ikea bed he’s had since he was twelve.

He turns to the side and places Nozomi gently next to his chest, praying she won’t feel the need to escape, because she wouldn’t survive a fall from this height.

“I’m gonna get you a cute bag, would you like it?”, he whispers again, and, somehow, miraculously, falls asleep a while later.

 

He spends the rest of the winter break spiralling further into his shitty sleep schedule and wanking like a demon in that sweet thirty minute interval between Ritsu going to sleep and their parents waking up. He sleeps through the beginning of the new year, and would wake up in the evening if Shu didn’t personally jostle him awake for a shrine visit together. At nights he mostly scrolls down insta or twitter or tries to write a new song, but somehow he can’t think of anything, or rather – he can focus, but not on the thing he’d like ( _Come on shake shake shakin’ body shape up body!_ , etc _ad infinitum_ ). Narukami-kun sends him a couple of photos from his hangouts with Shu’s boy, and in one of them, there’s something in the background that looks like another hand, so unless one of them grew an extra one, Shu was with them, watching sitcoms and applying hair masks. He doesn’t want to look pathetic, being the only one to sit at home and collect dust, so he gets some cake for personal use, buys Nozomi a few extra collars and toys and hits back with a detailed report on her daily life. It takes Narukami-kun a while to respond with something coherent.

He doesn’t really know how did it happen; how did Narukami-kun start out as someone whose existence Rei was only mildly aware of, and end up as the person who revived his insta account and stuck their lovable nose into his so-called private life. And it didn’t even take him a week, which, Rei admits, was probably his own fault for agreeing to hang out at the mall, seduced by the perspective of Fresh Ritsu Stuff for the low price of giving his honest and detailed opinion about every single article of clothing Narukami-kun considers buying. And then everything happens really fast, because apparently Narukami-kun _isn’t a gossip machine, excuse you, but I do have ears and eyes, yeah?_ , and thus, he casually asks Rei just _how much_ does he like Koga-chan between a white polka dot shirt and a black tight-fitting t-shirt, and decides to play matchmaker between one bite of a spinach crepe and another.

“I don’t quite understand what do you mean, my dear child”, Rei risks, staring with utter regret at his plate, because as delicious as his banana pancakes look, there’s five of them (just a half would be okay, but for some reason it wasn’t an option) and they’re soaked in salted caramel sauce and the smell alone is enough to make him nauseous, as if he already ate too much. Regret, regret.

“I mean”, Narukami-kun replies patiently, and that’s unnerving, because patiently is what Rei does, not what is done to him, “that like half of the school is convinced you have a thing going on, and that my cute junior, you know, after that Halloween live, came up to me like, and here I quote, _with all due respect, I don’t think courting a man who’s taken is an action that suits a knight!_ That’s what he said. _Courting_! He’s so cute, I almost died!” Rei hums noncommittally, still digesting the actual quote, and Narukami-kun rolls his eyes. “Oh come _onnn_ , the man who’s taken is you, Rei-chan! Arrive at conclusions, or something!”

But Rei ( _Rei-chan_ ), instead of arriving, only digs his feet deeper into the safe, muddy ground of skepticism. “I’m afraid I’m unable to. Though determining the truth based on the unsourced opinions of a group is certainly an interesting–”

Narukami-kun groans, and it sounds adorable. He cuts off quite a big portion of his crepe and eats it quickly, chewing angrily and with a purpose. “So like, you’re saying that you don’t like him, and he doesn’t like you, like at all, absolutely nope, and my senses are wrong?”

Rei doesn’t really know which one would offend Narukami-kun the most. “I’m afraid that’s exactly what I’m saying–”

“Wrong!”, Narukami-kun points a fork at him, then, after a moment, “Or rather, you’re lying!” The fork jab is even angrier this time.

Adn then Rei listens to him talking about Koga-chan, and to his own embarrassment, he feels something indescribable in his chest that’s probably begins to slowly manifest on his face as well. _Koga-chan doesn’t really see me as a friend, but_ , Narukami-kun says, and Rei realizes it’s something like a pain, the same kind of pleasant pain he feels seeing Ritsu talking to and smiling at someone else. Koga is a simple boy, apparently, and he might not know his own feelings, but it’s obvious to anyone who sees it that it’s something more than just admiration. _Admiration is when you, like, pick up an instrument like your favourite musician and want to learn to play it like him, but what Koga-chan is doing? Is something else_. Narukami-kun goes on, about how Koga-chan tries to hide it, but he eavesdrops on every conversation as soon as he hears ‘Sakuma’, even though there are two of them, so he must be doing it just in case it’s the right one, and how back then, after the Halloween live, or before, depending on the unit, really, but anyway Koga-chan looked so angry and hurt, it was so sad but also kinda funny, you know, because he looked like he wanted to kill, or at least severely injure you, Rei-chan! With the first thing that gets in his hand, and he was holding a dog, so! (Ah, and by the way, the dogs were really cute!) And that wasn’t the regular Koga Oogami anger (Narukami-kun knows, he could write a book on hard-working tsundere boys based on Koga-chan and Izumi-chan, seriously, they’re _hopeless_ ), that was something else, something a girl in love knows at the first sight, namely, etc.

Rei observes Narukami-kun, the way he talks, the way his eyebrows and lips move, soft but full of energy, and fights the urge to smile. Funny. And somewhat ironical.

“Otogari Adonis-kun”, Rei says when Narukami-kun stops to take a breath; it starts out as a statement, but in the middle, Rei decides to make it a bit teasing and draws out the last vowel gently – and it’s enough. Narukami-kun goes silent, and presses his lips together, like he was trying to say, _He certainly exists, yes, what about him_ , then his eyes widen slightly – it’s really fascinating to look at, Rei realizes, amused – and he bites his lip, huffs, and blushes slightly. His skin is light, so it’s visible even under the make-up.

“Oh, right, what else can you expect”, he grumbles quietly, then downs his cup of tea. “I forgot, Ritsu-chan does that too sometimes. And that’s rude, don’t you two know?” Another jab. “But, well, _yeah_. Let’s call it multitasking…?”

“But you can also… single-task…?”, Rei suggests, cutting off a tiny part of pancake that isn’t covered in the sauce. The sad thing was that there’s also no banana in it. Instead, a small cup of cream exists next to the plate, so maybe it softens the taste of the sauce, at least? Narukami-kun opens his mouth and Rei suddenly feels like immersing his whole being into testing that hypothesis.

Then, Narukami-kun closes his mouth. He looks at Rei for a while, and his eyes are truly serious, no trace of the purposefully cute frown left, and then sighs.

“I mean, like, it’s not like I can force you to do what I want you to do. You’re not Izumi-chan, I mean”, he says, and Rei almost smiles. Narukami-kun doesn’t say it, but the hint of _Izumi-chan who complains and complains but softens in the end_ is still clearly here. _I can’t force you to do it, but I’m damn well going to try at least_ as well. Narukami-kun reaches to the back of his head, rubbing his undercut absentmindedly in a similar manner to long-haired people twirling their hair around their fingers. “But you know… it’s like, I’m not like, madly in love with Adonis-chan, you know? He’s really nice, and handsome, and when he smiles it’s like–”, Narukami-kun waves his hands around to demonstrate the effect Adonis-kun’s smile has on him, fascinatingly similar to the one Koga’s has on Rei. “–but it’s not like I die if we don’t go out, okay? I mean, I want it, but like, you know…!” Another vague gesture; Narukami-kun is cute like that. “And besides, we still have a year to get to know each other! Like, it’s been two years, but in the first year, I didn’t really pay attention to Adonis-chan (a sin, I know), but now I do. And I can still pay attention to him for a year.”

Narukami-kun actually makes an effort to look into Rei’s eyes, and Rei is cool. He’s an adult; well, not officially, but he’s always thought of himself as of a realist. Someone who can deal. With stuff. Who’s prepared, etc.

But this time, he already knows what Narukami-kun is going to say, and averts his eyes.

“But Koga-chan doesn’t have a year, and you can think what you want, but he likes you way more than I like Adonis-chan, so…” Narukami-kun pokes the crepe with a fork; it’s probably cold right now. “I’m not telling you to like, do anything, but at least think about it, hmm?”

The last sentence is where Narukami-kun’s cutesy persona returns, along with the pout, but Rei still can’t bring himself to look at him. His mouth is dry and he thinks of Sena-kun, because this must be it, the softening. Being in Knights is must be a lot of fun, Rei thinks, and reaches blindly for his cup. He doesn’t remember if he’s finished it or if there’s still some tea left, and to be honest, he doesn’t remember when was the last time he drank the tea either, so if it exists, it must be cold.

“Rei-chan, that’s the cream.”

 

Rei doesn’t have a great realization scene, in which he’s washing the dishes, suddenly realizes he’s in love and drops a plate right on his left foot, effectively breaking a bone, or, alternatively, in which he’s looking at someone’s ass, realizes his feelings regarding it and its owner are more intense than normally, and walks into a pole. Or, really, any combination of stuff like sporting a lovely thousand yard stare or clutching your chest in utter romantic disbelief. Things like these are not realistic, and besides, Rei deals with his emotions like an adult, that is: denies them for a while, thinks _ughhh_ a lot when they take a shape that’s more specific, struggles pathetically, embarrassing himself in the process, then buries them deeply and pretends they never existed.

So when he sees Koga – back then, Oogami, or _hey, kid_ – for the first time, eyes wide as if he saw the Koh-i-noor, or a ghost, or a ghost carrying Koh-i-noor, and thinks _cute!_ , his brain instantly pops a cool red light, but he forces it to calm the fuck down. He’s called lots of people cute before. Ritsu, obviously. That little girl coming back from a festival with the biggest shark plushie he’s ever seen, who grinned at him with absolute pride. Kai Ogasawara. Jennifer from England, who talked to him maybe once or twice, but was absolutely nuts in a positive way and when she was near, his English got even worse, an astounding achievement in itself. That one dude from the music store with such hands and such voice that Rei acted like a total beginner only to listen to him talking about picks and the hardness of the wood for almost an hour; after that he got so embarrassed he never came back, in fact avoiding going to the shopping mall whatsoever because What If He’s There.

So, yeah. Normal. He decides that, and moves on, not thinking about such silly shit anymore. There are more important things, like Oogami’s dumb ponytail, bouncy and amazing to tug at, or his cheeks, round and soft like mochi and equally delightful to squish, especially when Oogami reddens and protests furiously, but Rei never knows what he’s saying, because, ha.

(Squishing someone’s cheeks is also a normal thing. Friends do that. Rei doesn’t know it from experience, because no one has ever squished his cheeks, but he just _knows_.)

The list of things that are perfectly normal for absolutely everyone on this earth is long and includes, for example, tapping Oogami’s nose playfully and thinking about biting it for the rest of the day, or: imagining how fluttery would Oogami’s pulse feel if he licked his neck and pressed his lips against that one spot above the collarbone. Or: testing a thesis that you can’t simply jack off thinking about, see, _random_ people, and arriving at some _revolutionary_ conclusions.

And then things happen, and the fact is: Koga Oogami never leaves, not even when Rei gets what he deserves and his former classmates turn their faces away with thinly veiled satisfaction when they meet in the hall. Not when Ritsu tells him to die and if sounds like a reasonable thing to do, and not when he’s the most pathetic fuck to ever exist, absolutely not admirable, and wishes to be both killed and held, like a stupid kid who scream that they hate mom. He burns, and Oogami – Koga, _Koga_ – gets too close, eyes worried and cheeks soft. Tenshouin basks in the warm light of his glory and Rei barely stops his own ashes from scattering in the wind, and as much as it pisses him off, physically hurts to do what Tenshouin wants, he does that anyway. Because doing the opposite might, just might, end up hurting even more, and the uncertainty is too terrifying to bear.

Hence, Wataru becomes Hibiki-kun, and so on, because for a while, Rei is paranoid. The others know, and move on, in a sense. They have themselves to take care of, and at this point, there’s not much they can say to each other; it’s natural they talk less. In a sort of a mutual understanding they still call Rei by his name, maybe out of habit, or maybe, Rei hopes quietly, to preserve the past, tell him that they’re still friends no matter what.

Meanwhile, Oogami still doesn’t leave; no matter how Rei treats him, thinking that maybe at some point he’ll leave and Rei will have one less person to fear. Rei figures it’s not a bad idea to change completely; the end of the year is soon, his former classmates will graduate, and the new year will start, bringing new faces, naively excited for the future. He feels a sudden surge of protectiveness towards every single soon-to-be first year who’ll enter the school already ruled by Tenshouin, and will have no memories of it before. It’s not like it was better, but different, and he still could sit with his legs on the desk and pretend he’s dying of boredom while Oogami hovered over him excitedly. Now, sometimes he feels too weak to even open his eyes. Oogami hovers anyway, less excited and more angry, and Rei can see it in his eyes that he’s disappointed; this is not what he signed up for, not what he wanted, and he needs this stranger to give his senpai back.

But his old self will never come back, Rei knows it. And he wants doggie to know it too, but he’s either stupid or stupidly persistent, because despite complaining and threatening or attempting to inflict bodily harm on him, he stays. And Rei isn’t blind, he notices how he nags him about sleeping and eating properly, covering how he cares with a bunch of insults, and sometimes he sees him in the garden next to the tomato patches. It won’t change anything anyway and he knows it, but sometimes seeing doggie’s efforts makes his chest ache, so much that it’s hard to breathe. _Why are you even doing this_ , he wants to ask. _Stop_. If he could make Koga stop caring about him, he thinks he would do that. Chasing something that doesn’t exist brings neither gain nor happiness.

Then – he could push him away more. At this point, he’s not even trying, sending so-called mixed signals, because Koga makes him lose control and feel things he shouldn’t be feeling. Sometimes he thinks he’s got the situation under control, and that it’s only Koga that’s like a child, thrashing and shouting, but then he looks up and sees the Aoi twins sending each other meaningful looks, or Kaoru-kun’s half-amused, half-pained face.

And even though Narukami-kun’s plan is very simple and seemingly foolproof – _just try being nice_ – it’s when Rei makes actual effort to get closer that the situation turns around and Koga steps back. His eyes are harder, angrier and he leaves when Rei smiles at him, and it doesn’t help when Narukami-kun admits that the smile was more like some uncomfortable grimace and _honestly, Rei-chan, I wouldn’t peg you for the type to get nervous like that, it’s kind of cute_.

 

Coming back to school is painful.

Nozomi had to stay with his mother, who accused him of trying to steal her new dog and wouldn’t listen to him, even though, as he tried to reason, it wasn’t stealing as much as his sincere concern, as both working at home and taking care of a dog is tiring and she might need time to relax. So he leaves dogless and Ritsuless, because Isara-kun managed to snatch him up when he was asleep.

Usually, after he leaves the bathroom on the third floor, hair still wet from the shower, he meets Nito-kun, who always goes here to wash the blackboard sponge; and usually Nito-kun, aside from _good morning_ , tells him to fix his sleeping schedule (Rei always replies with one thing, namely _Good night_ ). This time he looks less pleased and mutters something about their homeroom teacher wanting to talk to him, so Rei, with great effort, leaves his towel to dry in the club room and goes to the staff room to check what great news are waiting for him. Then it turns out he’s been absent from exactly fifty percent of the classes minus one, so one more skipped hour and he’ll have to take a special exam. Rei took it once. It ended predictably.

It’s honestly a blessing that he’s decided to leave his books in the club room and fuck the winter break homework, because this morning he woke up late, was a mess, and the only things he put in his school bag were his wallet, a pencil case, a spare notebook and toothpaste. The PE uniform is still on his desk back home, folded neatly and left untouched since the second day of the winter break. Rei focuses and vaguely remembers that on Thursdays, PE is on the first period. Nice.

“Is there any kind soul that could skip today’s PE and lend me their uniform?”, he announces the second he steps into the classroom, and then something pinches his sides and he almost elbows Tsukinaga-kun in his royal face.

“Me! I plan to skip! I mean I didn’t earlier, but thanks for the idea, whoever you are!”, Tsukinaga-kun exclaims, throwing his hand up like a determined anime character. For reasons unknown, he’s holding a pair of scissors. “So take my uniform! Take it right now, I need to be free of everything that restricts me, even clothes, _especially_ clothes, for I’m the–”

“Leo-chiiin”, Nito-kun interrupts, grabbing Tsukinaga-kun’s eager hands and confiscating the scissors in a fluid way of someone who’s done the same job for twenty years and has perfected every single motion, “This is Rei-chin, not this uniform, please don’t undress, and don’t skip when we’re at it, thank you.” Tsukinaga-kun stops, but looks at Nito-kun like a dog who chased after a ball its owner didn’t really throw. “And no offense, but your uniform is way too small, Rei-chin could maybe wear it on his head.”

“Did your ears grow?!”, Tsukinaga-kun gasps, and observes Rei’s ears carefully, “Eh, not that much! Nazu, you lied to me! I thought his ears would grow, like bats, do you know there are bats whose ears are bigger than their skull? Well, he’s halfway there, but–”

Rei’s feelings must be showing on his face, because Nito-kun screams soundlessly and pats Tsukinaga-kun on the back furiously, telling him to stop fooling around and that it was only a figure of speech ( _A weird one! You’re weird, Nazu!_ ), he meant that the clothes are really small, _really_ small! Aoba-kun giggles and immediately whips out his phone to cover that, and Kiryuu-kun actually snorts, then turns around in his seat.

“I don’t know about Tsukinaga”, he says, “but Thursdays are a free lesson, so we’ll probably play volleyball again. Itsuki skips volleyball, go and ask him.”

Rei goes, and when he knocks on the handicrafts club room’s door, there’s a yelp, a curse and good fifteen seconds of noises of unknown source before a clearly red-faced Kagehira-kun opens the door. Shu’s cheeks are only a bit pink and he’s glaring, first at the band-aid on his finger, then at Rei, but he parts with his uniform without sorrow.

Rei wishes he could say the same about his dignity, but after six hours, he’s worn out both physically and mentally. The PE teacher was ecstatic to see him and manifested that joy by having him go through every type of exercise he missed, including but not limited to handstands and somersaults on the bar. She decided that he was not putting in enough effort, gave him a barely passing grade and an encouraging pat on the back that had him doubling over. He couldn’t take a shower (he didn’t even have to try to know that outrunning Morisawa-kun and Sena-kun would be somewhat impossible if you can barely stand) and sat through the next five classes marinating in his own sweat. Other teachers reacted to his presence with more or less sincere joy and collectively decided that a student who’s been absent for who knows how long is the best pick for answering questions about recent material. And usually Rei can tune out the criticism until he’s calmed down and rethink it coolly, but by the end of the first period he’s close to death, and the other five don’t make it any better.

A gentle hand rests on his head (heavy, tired, close to combusting on the desk) and he psyches himself up for way too long to open his eyes.

“Rei”, Kanata says, and Rei thanks every deity of this world that it’s him, and not, for example, Wataru, “do you want a ‘shrimp’?”

Rei doesn’t. What he wants instead is a quiet and painless death; he’s too tired to eat and he probably wouldn’t even feel any taste anyway. It’s a mouthful, though, so he hopes a pathetic whine is enough to tell Kanata what he thinks. Kanata giggles and pets his hair soothingly, putting his other hand on Rei’s cheek. Cold. Good. Rei whines again, this time gratefully.

Another cool thing lands on his nape and the shock gives him enough energy to squeak in protest.

“Don’t ‘bother’ him, he’s ‘dying’”, Kanata says and the cool thing disappears, only to appear on the desk in front of his face. It’s a rice ball.

“There”, Kiryuu-kun says, “you really look like you’re dying, at least eat something. You probably haven’t eaten since morning, huh?”

Rei wonders how on earth _he_ could eat anything and realized that most people eat breakfast at home, for starters, or: probably don’t need fifteen minutes to recover from basic exercises. The rice ball is small and apparently there’s only salmon in it, but when Rei thinks about eating it, it suddenly seems huge and just. Too much.

Nito-kun finishes wiping the blackboard, claps his hands clean and brings Rei a few leftover cherry tomatoes from his lunch. This is something Rei can force himself to eat, though the encouraging look Nito-kun gives him isn’t as encouraging as he wishes. Tsukinaga-kun deals the killing blow and brings him his leftovers – three sausage octopi ( _Just don’t tell Sena!_ ).

“Rei is ‘too much’ right now, don’t ‘overwhelm’ him or he’ll die for real, you know?”, Kanata says, blessed being, and there’s a faint echo of irritation in his mellow voice. Rei gently, almost unnoticeably presses his cheek against Kanata’s cold hand.

“He’s not going to die if he eats something”, Kiryuu-kun says in a concerned voice of a good big brother he probably is, completely ignoring the fact that Rei is here and would rather die for real, or at least sleep, than eat. Chewing required energy. “I’m not saying everything, but at least something, dude seriously looks like he could faint any given moment.”

The weight on Rei’s head disappears and Kanata takes a careful look at Rei’s face.

“He does look ‘weak’, but if you pressure him into doing ‘things’, he won’t want to do anything”, he explains, petting Rei’s nose with his finger. To that, Rei can’t help but smile; or at least he feels himself smiling, but he’s not sure if the corners of his mouth actually rise.

Another hand brushes his hair away from his face and he winces, hit by the faint rays of the setting sun. Nito-kun puts his bangs back, then slides them away only by a little and says something about Rei-chin losing weight again, _you haven’t been exercising at all during the winter break, right, Rei-chin?_

“Do you think I’ll gain weight back after eating those”, Rei mutters flatly and he already can hear Kiryuu-kun taking a breath.

“Yeah, isn’t that how it works?”, Tsukinaga-kun interrupts brightly, and Kiryuu-kun clicks his tongue in irritation, “At least until you poop. Isn’t this why you can’t swim after eating?”

Nito-kun’s _Leo-chin!!!_ is so loud and offended that Rei attempts to mold his head into the desk; it seems Kiryuu-kun has the same idea, because there’s a bang behind him, and Aoba-kun once again snorts and pretends he absolutely didn’t.

“Don’t you have practice to attend?”, Kiryuu-kun asks, and another voice replies that _yes, he does_ , and Tsukinaga-kun yelps, somewhat joyfully, because he’s just been grabbed by the hood by Sena-kun. _Practice_ , Rei thinks, _music club practice_ , and that thought is enough to make him sit up. It’s probably the worst idea he’s had today, because a sharp pain pierces his skull and for a second he feels his body is moving, probably in some direction, but he has no idea which one, as if he was floating in the air, but with a cracked skull and brain oozing by either ear. An unspecified number of hands catch him and settle him back into a more or less stable position, and there’s a quiet but irritated _Rei!_ and the gentlest bap on his forehead.

“What are you doing, are you stupid?”, Sena-kun scoffs; probably hasn’t yet realized Rei’s brain usually is in the state of having been better at some point.

“ _I_ have practice”, Rei explains, and it dawns on him that he’s never been particularly diligent, neither about classes nor club practice. And thus.

“Eh, doesn’t mean you have to die right there!”, Tsukinaga-kun says, bouncing closer to Rei’s desk, “Eat something first, your precious juniors can wait!”

Sena-kun hisses something that sounds dangerously like _oh yes,_ your _juniors do nothing but that_ , but Tsukinaga-kun is either too immersed in proudly sliding his lunchbox closer to Rei or pretending he can’t hear him.

“Wait, is that my…?”

Tsukinaga-kun makes an alarmed noise and hurries to explain Sena-kun that _absolutely not!, just a coincidence, totally!_ , to which Sena-kun hisses that _I made_ you _lunch,_ you _are supposed to eat it!_ , meanwhile Kiryuu-kun starts packing his books and pats Rei on the shoulder with unknown but probably friendly intent, while Nito-kun rolls his eyes so hard that for a second his eyes are almost entirely white. Aoba-kun has probably realized his attempts at keeping his cover were futile and is now eating something bready, observing Sena-kun’s glorious wrath curiously.

“You’re amazing”, Rei mutters, unwraps the rice ball and bites off a third part of it. It’s not as bad as he suspected, the taste of rice making it just _right_ , but it’s a bit hard to chew. Sena-kun hurls another insult at him along with a water bottle on his desk, because _you have to be an idiot to eat instantly without drinking, do you want to ruin your dumb stomach_ , then makes a disgusted – _disgusted_ – face and goes on a tirade about the state of Rei’s skin and _I shouldn’t be surprised with your diet, but you’re an idol and this is absolutely pathetic, are you aware of that?_ , etc. Kanata gently places a shrimp in tempura on a paper plate in front of him and he eats it too – _‘slowly’, Rei, you need to ‘savour’ the taste_ – but he only gets to eat one sausage octopus, as Tsukinaga-kun quickly eats the other two ( _delicious, right? That’s because Sena made them with lovahaha Sena you look so cutaaah! Hurting your king, how dare you!_ ).

“You can go now”, Nito-kun says, his parenting instinct obviously satisfied, when Rei crumples the onigiri wrapping and puts it on the paper plate. Rei feels several years younger; either that, or his mental age, which would probably be around eighty. “Just stand up slowly, okay?”

“Thank you for taking care of me, sweet child”, Rei says, gripping Nito-kun’s small hand in his two hands; he rolls his eyes again. Kiryuu-kun is already gone, same for Aoba-kun, and even Sena-kun managed to force his King to go to unit practice. UNDEAD’s practice would be a more frequent if Kaoru-kun was willing to grace them with his presence, and sometimes Rei strongly wishes he could reply to his text with something like _who are you? i don’t remember a person named kaoru hakaze_ , but the fact is that Kaoru-kun never texts him, so he doesn’t even have a chance.

He also doesn’t have a chance to apologize to his beloved juniors for being late, because no one’s at the club room when he arrives. When he checks his phone, there’s a message from Hinata-kun saying that they’re going to be helping a classmate after school, and so, etc., but there’s nothing from Koga, and Rei isn’t even surprised. He waits half an hour, though, for good measure, trying to write something, but it’s nearly impossible with _Shake body_ still on loop in his head, and then, finally, he gives up and realizes he’s got a bunch of free time and nothing to do. He forces himself to sit and stare at his notebook for ten more minutes, scribbles down a melody that randomly pops in his head, decides he has no idea what to even do with such a thing and shuts it close.

_Koga_.

He could take a shower, but his body is already used to the order of _shower then sleep_ , and if he sleeps now, he’ll wake up at midnight, waste half of the night doing nothing and feel tired in the morning when he’s supposed to live through another seven hours of classes. He could also play something (the twins left their instruments in the club room) or whip out his laptop and force himself to do something with the melody, but he’s tired, and the more he tries not to think about sleeping, the heavier his eyelids feel.

_Where is Koga?_

It’s rare of him to skip practice; if he did that, it was usually because something serious happened; last time it was because Leon stepped on a piece of glass ( _dumb-ass fucking drunk salarymen_ ) and got his paw injured, and Koga had to change his bandage often and watch him so he doesn’t chew it off. This time? Maybe he caught a cold during the break and headed straight home after school, because the later he comes back from school, the colder it is? Or maybe he wanted to do some shopping before it got dark. Rei isn’t sure why a strong boy who definitely wouldn’t hesitate before socking a potential attacker in the jaw would be bothered by the dark, but doesn’t rule out that option anyway.

Or – Rei reminds himself he’s not the center of the universe approximately once a week, but this one is justified – maybe it’s his fault. Or rather: something tied with him. After all, he’s never visited that shopping center again out of sheer fear of embarrassment; if he kissed someone and ran away, limiting himself to a single building wouldn’t be enough and he’d probably flee the country, if not the planet. Except that’s _him_ ; Koga seems like the type to just pretend nothing happened, and/or punch the first person who brings it up into oblivion.

Normally he’d ask. In his own way, so: he’d send an almost illegible text (working out how to warp the message with wrong kanji and random katakana is a great creativity exercise and works like a charm in terms of upholding his reputation as _an overall good dude, it’s just sometimes you want to kill him_ ), something along the lines of _did you get lost, my dear puppy? your master misses you umu_ (he really likes that kaomoji), and Koga would reply with _fuck off_ or _die_ or something else clearly meaning he’s alive, in one piece, and harbors no negative feelings towards Rei.

Except it would have a slightly different meaning now.

Rei really, really wants to sleep, and what’s more depressing, preferably not alone.

To fight the former, he sits up from the floor (what sounds like a hundred joints protesting in a miserable unison), barely gets to the school store and gets himself the weakest coffee possible, topping it with three portions of suga (and how it turns out later, two too much). For the latter, he doesn’t have many ideas.

Or?

 

He ends up going home and stealing Non (short for Nozomi, finally a name suiting her size) back to his room, where he eithes works hard on the song or plays with her. The song is already starting to look like _something_ , even though he’s still not fully convinced, and he presumes it can be finished fairly quickly if he truly applies himself to it. On the other hand, Non applies herself to lying on his stomach or chest – the only way they can be at the same eye level – bapping him with her tiny paw and making puppy noises, which is probably dog for _play with me!_ , but Rei needs a while to compose himself every time she does that, so it’s not entirely effective.

Around eight Narukami-kun texts him what seems like a string of every emoji ever invented, but when Rei scrolls a few times, it turns out there are also words, namely: _guess who just came back from a date!!!!!!!!!!_ , followed by another thousand of bear emoji, flexed muscle emoji and all kinds of meat emoji, in case Rei wasn’t yet aware who’s the cutest (Adonis Otogari), sweetest (Adonis Otogari) and hottest (Adonis Otogari) boy in Yumenosaki, whose (Adonis Otogari) butt was out of this world, sorry, Izumi-chan. Rei, out of sincere concern, politely asks if Adonis-kun knows it was a date, and Narukami-kun, after initially throwing insults and accusing Rei of just being jealous!! jea-lous!!!, admits that _okay it wasnt a date but we HUNG OUT ♥♥ and it was FUN ♥♥ and the point still stands YOUR MOVE_.

Rei frowns, and scritches behind Non’s little (soft and a bit floppy) ear slower. Is he jealous? He doesn’t even know what would he do if he could _hang out_ with Koga. Probably something to do with Non. He realizes, with a small gasp, thay they’re both doggies, very cute, light-haired and tiny-handed. Pawed? Koga would probably act cool but he’d be totally melting inside; Rei’s saw how adorable he was with Leon, and even though he claimed he and Leon were cool manly bros, he probably called him sweet pet names in a cute high-pitched voice at home. Oh, but what if he did that with Non? Rei would die immediately, on the spot, his body unable to handle such cuteness. But Koga isn’t only cute with dogs, but with everything he does; he doesn’t need long and thin fingers to look mesmerizing when he’s changing the strings in his guitar because his certain, fluid motions and focused face are enough. When he’s playing on stage, his eyes sparkle as if he was a child making his instrument produce sound properly for the first time and marveling at it, and even when he’s trying and failing to land a punch on Rei – Rei wonders what would it be like to actually get hit. To get knocked to the floor and have his triumphant face above, which. After some careful thought. Isn’t a picture suitable for before bed, especially with underage dogs around.

_A date_ , Rei reminds himself quickly, and then, _or just hanging out_ , because no one said anything about a date; but if anything, Rei would probably just do whatever Koga wants, as long as it’s not tiring. Maybe they’d loiter around the shopping center, because there’s a music shop there and for some ungodly reason Koga doesn’t like the chorus effect outside of the rhythm guitar and Rei absolutely has to convince him ( _it’s so retro, doggie, don’t you just love retro_ ), and because there’s no such thing as too much clean clothes. And maybe later they’d go out to eat something and Koga would probably insist he eats something, and Rei would be an idiot again, saying some dumb shit like _your master is a feeble old man who can’t hold chopsticks, so you’ll have to feed me, my doggie_ , and Koga would look for stuff to chuck at him, but he’d make the cutest angry face.

Or the cliche but iconic aquarium. Rei wonders how would Koga’s face look like in the gentle blue light, and remembers that some rooms were really dark, enough to

Narukami-kun sends him like three messages in one second, so Rei winces (and chastises himself immediately, because he’s nineteen, he’s almost an adult and he should be realistic and responsible and not thinking about holding hands in an aquarium) and brings the LINE app back to find, indeed, three recent messages and many more he’d ignored, the gist of which was something like _rei-chan?? rei-chan?? if you need a fun location to think about hanging out w/ kogachan at, theres a cute cat cafe ♥ but also youre jealous_.

_adonis-kun is a good, kind-hearted boy but luckily im not particularly interested in him_ , he replies, and Narukami-kun hits back with a bunch of knife emoji, then explains that– that Koga-chan was sorta weird today. That is, still his usual self, but also: really tired. More tired than before the winter break, and that’s horrible, because winter break is for resting, but Koga-chan, for some reason, looked really dejected. For a minute Rei feels cold, because he’s seen Koga _dejected_ and the only thing that could make him look so _that wasn’t him_ would be Leon being hurt in some way. From what Rei knows, Leon isn’t even two years old; Koga got it from his parents after their old dog died, and they’ve been together ever since. But Narukami-kun says he sent Mao-chan to start a neutral dog conversation and ask what’s up, and a/ initially Koga claimed Leon’s fine and his usual manly self, but then complained about losing an eraser, made a scary face and muttered something about kicking that fluffy butt, b/ showed an exquisite knowledge about toys suitable for small dogs, and, Rei-chan, I don’t remember much but apparently rope is nice, isn’t it funny? Anyway, was it you, Rei-chan? Did you do something, then?

Rei denies all charges before they’re even laid and innocently explains that once the MV shooting was finished, they ate a bit and went home. Narukami-kun mentions that Koga-chan looked so cool in the outfit, and Rei has to restrain himself – by putting the phone for a second and giving Non a long belly rub – from marvelling at the fact that for someone who seems to be allergic to any kinds of elegance, Koga wore a waistcoat like a… like a smaller Mr Darcy. Who says _fuck_ a lot and growls from time to time, but still.

But then Rei makes a mistake of going back to the original topic and mentioning that Koga skipped club practice; Narukami-kun replies, with a machine gun speed and similarly overwhelming emoji usage, that _then he’s avoiding you!! its so simple how could you not mention that earlier it’s THE stage of high school romance!!!!_ , after which Rei doesn’t reply for a while, extremely busy with brushing every hair on Non’s cloudy person with his own brush. He’s nineteen, after all, and this is what an adult should do: take care of their surroundings. Not engage in pointless conversations about, huh, crushes.

(Koga, Koga avoiding him because he’s confused about his feelings, Koga avoiding him because he’s afraid of embarrassing himself, Koga avoiding him because he likes him and doesn’t know what to do with that fact– but then no, no, Koga Oogami, age sixteen, someone Rei can’t hurt again, but then _Koga_ –)

_but enough about me how was the not-date date. apparently fun?_ , he sends, and winces terribly halfway.

“Do you perhaps happen to know why the hell am I like this?”, he asks Non, putting his phone away and picking her up instead. It seems her opinion of him is still positive, no matter how much he’s failing at being a responsible adult, and he spends the next minute telling her how much of a lovely lady she is, asking for her dainty hand and gasping when she kindly offers it.

Ritsu’s head (round, adorable, little brother frown number thirteen) pops in from behind the door.

“Food”, he says, and then, “Open the window, you smell. Give the dog back. You’re disgusting”, and then leaves.

Rei loudly assures him of his undying love, changes into a hoodie, puts Non in the front pocket (snaps a few selfies, reacts in enthusiasm at a cute selfie Narukami-kun sends him and hits back with a pocket dog), reads up on Narukami-kun’s not-date some more (they went shopping, Ado-chan looked !!!!!!! in a black shirt, then they ate, Ado-chan looked like the cutest bunny when he was chewing, _reichan do i have a problem? ohhh god i dooo i love it_ ) and sends a quick dinner message (along with dinner-like emoji).

Dinners in the Sakuma family rarely look like a dinner traditionally should; it’s usually someone announcing there’s food and the rest of family quietly snatching their portion and leaving to eat in own room. Rei can only remember the last time they ate together was back when he and Ritsu were in elementary school; later their mother decided to discard the table, as it was too big and clashed with the rest of the room. His English teacher in middle school claimed that sharing a table strengthens familial bonds and it’s honestly damaging if you don’t do that. She must have felt stupid after saying that, because she corrected herself and said that her family doesn’t do it because they’re all busy and it’s okay to feel lonely, but Rei only rolled his eyes behind the book. He didn’t feel lonely; first of all, his parents weren’t that interested in what he had to say anyway, and second of all, Ritsu kicking him under the table and solemnly swearing it wasn’t him was the only familial bond he needed.

Ritsu still finds a way to kick him even if there’s no table (Rei shifts into hyper focus every time he enters the kitchen, because quick ankle hits are Ritsu’s specialty) and it happens this time as well, but mostly because Rei’s busy thinking about something else. With a small break for a pathetic moan when Ritsu plucks Non out of his pocket, he thinks about Koga and his dining habits. He eats alone, that’s for sure. Or together with Leon. But does he feel lonely? Does he think that eating with your family is important? He can’t recall Koga mentioning his parents more than _They let me live alone closer to the school next year!_ and _Like she cares!_ when Hasumin mentioned something along the lines of, boring boy voice here, _Don’t you think about what your mother would think if she knew what you’re doing?_. But doggie is just a lonely boy who really wants to have close friends and just as much tries to hide it. Does that mean he’s been neglected as a child? Or on the contrary, does he miss his tight-knit family, but thinks that’s a bit embarrassing and tries to act tough?

Rei gives up and eats the chicken – alone, even though Non surely is trying to crawl into the bowl – while thinking about Koga’s culinary habits like an obsessed teenager, from what kind of meat does he like the most to what does he eat for lunch (in which he realizes he’s never noticed if Koga brought lunchboxes from home or if he just bought stuff from the school store, and that, for some reason, feels like a sin). Koga must be able to cook well – otherwise he’d spend a lot of money buying ready to eat food for himself, and Rei can recall him complaining about yakisoba bread’s price rising from 130 yen to 160, so he has to be careful about money. He was also the main cook every time they grilled something outside, and once Kaoru-kun said he would make a good husband, with that cooking ability and without everything else. Koga gave him the least good looking meat after that, and drank all of his pepsi – but that was deserved, since Kaoru-kun said _And that’s what I’m talking about, no one will want you, Doggie!_ with suspicious glee. Maybe Koga was secretly aspiring to be the best husband to ever exist.

_Are you an idiot_ , he thinks to himself. And then realizes a few important things consecutively, for example Koga’s fascinating tendency to deprive Kaoru-kun of food only to give it to Rei, or the fact that he’s really fond of England and his dog is a corgi, and then: how last year, Koga was the first thing he thought of when he saw that white, notabene, pomeranian, notabene, during summer holidays. Koga and marriage. Because he wanted to set them up, he remembers.

( _Koga–_ )

He looks at Non, puts her back in the front pocket, gets to his school bag and digs his notebook out. UNDEAD songs usually feature a guitar.

 

Sometimes Rei is a good citizen. He helps his juniors, ruffles their hair, but not hard enough to get rid of it, kisses puppies and so on.

Sometimes, though, he derives joy from pressing his cold-ass palms to Shu Itsuki’s noble neck.

Shu yelps, blissfully undignified, and Rei thinks of Kagehira-kun and his verstatile _nnah_ , different tone for every emotion. They’re truly a beautiful match and Rei’s heart swells with joy.

“How dare you, you…!”, Shu whips around furiously, and if he had long hair, say, like Wataru, he’d kill Rei with the sheer force of the most magnificent hair flip in history of mankind. Rei wouldn’t mind. “ _Oh_. Rei. I thought you’re… What do you want?”

Rei smiles. Frankly, he just wanted to warm his hands, and since Shu appeared in front of him, in his short-haired, neck-exposed glory, he simply couldn’t waste such an opportunity.

“Just saying hello”, Rei rubs his hands; there’s a fairly dry sound and Shu winces. “Are the croissants biting today?”

Shu winces even more. “What kind of an old man persona is this again? Nevermind. I take it you’re not busy? Good. This useless idiot probably won’t come today, Kagehira has... (a refined scoff) _classes_ , and I need someone to untangle the ribbons. Come.”

Rei comes, because the handicrafts club room is always pleasantly warm, but it turns out Shu wasn’t joking with the ribbons; Rei is given a large ball of what seems like a hundred different ribbons of different colors and fifteen minutes left of the lunch break to untangle it.

Rei dares to ask what happened, waiting for the kettle to boil, Shu replies _That imbecile, of course, who else_ – and that’s when Rei remembers he’s alone in one room with a man in love. Shu has always been ranked first among them in terms of casually insulting people on a daily basis, so some words that would sound sincere said by other people lose meaning when it’s him, but this one sounds almost _tender_. Rei only laughs quietly and opens his mouth to say _Kagehira-kun surely is doing his best_ , but Shu interrupts him–

“...and in a moment it’s going to be you as well. Roll them properly and secure, if you please, the wire is in that drawer.”

Rei grabs the wire, then pours the water into the teapot. He raises the lid to press on the leaves a bit, just to make the tea brew faster, but Shu clicks his tongue with such authority and disappointment that he gives it up and goes back to the ribbons. They’re mostly shades of wine, either in the exact shade of Valkyrie’s outfit or darker, then black, white and gold, but by contrast, Rei can easily spot a few blues and he can’t help but smile.

They work in silence, save for the rustling of the ribbons in Rei’s hands and the clack of Shu’s countless lace pins, until Shu sighs and checks the time.

“I’m pleased to see you’re not that horrible at it”, he says, and Rei rolls his eyes. “Significantly better than you seemingly are in pursuing what you want, as I’ve been recently–”

Rei puts down the almost completely finished ribbon circle with a little more force than planned and tries to make his face look presentable. “I didn’t–”

“ _First of all it’s silk_ ”, Shu hisses, fast and menacing, like a pink snake whose glare is venomous enough to kill. Rei presses his lips together, but pats the ribbon apologetically. “Second, Kagehira talks too much. Narukami, really? You really can do better than let a second year interfere in your business, especially this particular one.”

“You’re saying a third year would be better, then? Kaoru-kun, maybe?”, Rei cocks his head with fake curiosity, then picks the ribbons up again. It’s already managed to loosed up, stupid.

“He does seem to be… _interested_ in the relationship between you and the mutt, yes”, Shu admits, with a face that suggests he can’t believe he’s saying what he’s saying, and Rei is glad they’re agreeing on this thing at least. “But I thought you adore this boy, was I mistaken?”

Absolutely not, _but_

“Don’t _you_ adore _your_ boy?”

The color of Shu’s cheeks resembles the one of his hair. Rei has no idea how and why did Shu decide to pick that exact pastel pink, but somehow he managed to pull it off without looking silly, and in the rare moments when he’s blushing, he looks like a personification of a cherry blossom.

“A bit of... _needed scolding_ is different from pushing him away against your will to take delight in how tortured your soul is”, Shu says sharply. Rei’s breath catches in his throat.

“It’s not–”, he starts, but Shu interrupts with _It is, I know_ and Rei clenches his fist under the table. Shu really does know, but it doesn’t make anything easier.

“Rei”, Shu sighs; again, with something akin to patience and Rei is frustrated, _frustrated_ , Shu still hides under a blanket if he’s overwhelmed, like a child, and lives solely on croissants, water and spite and yet it’s _him_ who– “I hope you understand that I will personally kill you if you ever repeat what I’m about to tell you, but…” Another sigh, this time not patient but irritated, and Rei hopes he’s going to say something really embarrassing to compensate for being that condescending. “I don’t care about that… feral dog child. I care about you,” he says and presses his lips together and Rei thinks, _oh no_ , “But I’d rather have you posting countless idiotic date photos on your accounts like Kiryuu than being like this. It’s… _not good_. Especially a month before an important dreamfes, and if your mental condition slows you down–”, Shu puts the pins down with surprising amount of force and gets up. Rei straightens up, fingers clenching on the cup.

“You don’t need to worry”, he says, and his voice sounds sharp and _no, wrong and bad, internalize, internalize_ , “I’m not that–”

“Don’t interrupt me, it’s distracting!”, Shu cuts him off and raises a hand, as if he was about to run his fingers through his hair in exasperation; he seems to decide against it, though, because he makes a vague gesture with his hand, then drops it. “I’m not trying to– dear gods, Rei, you’re making everything difficult, the _point is_ ”, he raises his voice and licks his lips, only to speak again in a barely audible whisper, “I know it’s uncomfortable, and that you’re scared, and that it– seems better to just stay where you are and never move, but…”

Shu is now red like a freshly picked tomato.

“But it’s quite– it’s, not as bad. As you think.”, he finishes, and immediately after, presses a fist against his mouth and turns away from Rei.

Quite–

_Ah_.

Huh.

Rei’s muscles relax. So that was it. So that was it, and he was stupid– no, he was kind of right, and that’s still frustrating, but Shu was– he was really–

Shu is pinching the bridge of his nose when he turns back to Rei, and there must be something in Rei’s face that irritates him, because he inhales sharply and straightens up, like a chastised student who’s still, nevertheless, going to argue with the teacher.

“ _And_ get out of my sight”, he demands. Rei looks at him gently for a second, processing, so Shu repeats himself, just to be safe. “Get _out_ , I say! And wash the cup. And don’t come back. Now.”

Shu is really, really cute.

 

Rei marches into the class three seconds before the bell with a lovely cup in hand, sipping tea with his pinky out. Kunugi gives him the sternest glare both when he gently sets in on his desk, and when he finishes the tea with elegant, small sips halfway through the class, but only tells him to put it on the window sill and _pay attention, Sakuma_. After the class ends, Rei washes the cup in the bathroom while Wataru lovingly braids his hair. He’s not sure if lily of the valley-scented soap is what Shu uses to take care of his equipment, but something that didn’t make his hair worse than it already is can’t be bad for teacups either.

The tea helped, but as it still isn’t food, Rei feels faint again. His hands are shaking slightly and he doesn’t even try to fix some thinner lines in the score for Koga; it’s already messy enough, with two colors of pen used because one ran out halfway. He’s more hungry than yesterday, and with no one left in the classroom to seduce him with shrimps, the sticks of chalk on the teacher’s desk are looking more and more alright with each passing second. And so, before he provides even more blackmail material to the security cameras man, he picks up the cup, shoves the score in his uniform pocket and leaves.

2-B finishes Friday classes exactly at three, so at the same time 3-B does. It’s been fifteen minutes, so they’re probably still not finished yet, as opposed to Nito-kun and his speed cleaning mode. Rei is going to give the cup back to Kagehira-kun (even the first years’ classrooms were closer than the club rooms), the score to Koga, if he’s there and doesn’t run away at the sight of him, and then he’s going to pet Ritsu’s lovely head, dodge his pencil case, thrown with vicious precision at his head, and leave, _there_.

Everything would be a lot easier if Rei didn’t have a cloud of unidentified anxiety in his head everythime he thinks about Koga, especially today. From a logical point of view, for someone who can perform in front of hundreds of people without batting an eye, talking to another person shouldn’t be a problem, even if that person has the cutest cheeks and a problematic habit of kissing people and running away without proper explanation. Rei is, though, a special raisin in the cheesecake of life; he would gladly internalize, internalize all these weird feelings he has no idea what to do with, internalize them so neatly that he could extract them from his mind in a physical form and throw into a shredder – if people weren’t suddenly telling him to act on them. And if his brain could decide between _yay this is a nice thing to do_ and _no we have to be consequent and keep on internalizing_ , because he wants nothing more than to just – have Koga, but then: he absolutely can’t, but then: he should just act normally, the end of the school year is still in two months and some, but then: Koga’s avoiding him, what if that kiss was only because he was testing it out and now he doesn’t want Rei to get the wrong idea and–

He stops, squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, then bites hard into his palm.

Oh.

Wait. No.

This technique is ten years too old, there are other ways to clear your mind and... a first year… Tenma-kun? Is staring at him, clearly rather dumbfounded.

“I’m testing out if you can bite through to your bone, my dear boy”, Rei blurts out, hiding the shameful hand behind his back. The boy nods solemnly and leaves him with humiliation carved eternally into his soul, and that particular kind of shivers down his spine, suggesting that he won’t live through the weekend because Nito-kun will murder him for indirectly making one of his kids bite his thumb off.

He rubs the bite marks, hoping no one will notice and he won’t have to explain that yes, he has a pomeranian, not a pet goblin shark, and enters the open classroom.

“Is Kage– _oh! Ritsu!_ Ritsu! You’re working hard, aren’t you, my sweet little champignon?”

Ritsu raises his head from his nap on the desk and tells _Maa-kun_ to _kill this thing_ in what could be called a growl if Ritsu growled (he is refused, but if there is anything Ritsu hates more than being called a sweet champignon, it’s being called a little coconut), but Rei loves him anyway, just like he loves the way Koga doesn’t immediately jump out of the window and continues packing his books instead.

Kagehira-kun notices the cup Rei’s holding and perks up immediately. Rei can’t help but ruffle his already mussed hair and he makes a _nnah_ that could be categorized as surprised but not displeased. _Your oshi-san is a really good boy, you know?_ , Rei sighs, and the boy cocks his head in confusion, but then shrugs a little and replies that _He’s the coolest, yeah!_

Rei wants to melt from three different reasons.

Narukami-kun, quiet so far, aside from _Ohh Rei-chan what a cute braid! ♥_ , narrows his eyes at something behind Rei.

He turns around, and because he’s an animal without an ounce of self control, grabs Koga by the collar, instead of, like a normal human being, his arm or uniform.

Koga, seemingly trying to leave the class unnoticeably and at full speed, chokes and gasps before he slaps Rei’s hands away.

“What the _fuck_?!”, he coughs, grabbing his bag like he was getting ready to sock Rei on the head, “Are you fucking mental!?”

“Oh, doggie, did I hurt you? I’m so sorry!”, he cries, patting Koga’s head with one hand and checking his neck for any injury with the other. Koga jumps back, and Rei can’t figure out of it’s the regularly scheduled Rei Sakuma Loathing or if he’s really disgusted with his touch. “You were just excited for the club practice, weren’t you? Here, have a treat.” He digs the folded score out of his pocket and gives it to Koga, which would be a semi-success at attempting a normal interaction if he didn’t do it with his hand outstretched, like he was trying to stab Koga with a piece of paper. He can physically feel Narukami-kun and Kagehira-kun pretending they’re not eavesdropping with all their might.

_Calm down, Sakuma. Dignity is a good thing to have_.

Koga makes a face, but stops frowning at him and starts frowning at the score as he checks it out, and Rei’s knees feel significantly softer. The crease between Koga’s eyebrows is almost gone, showing focus, not anger, and he presses his lips together slightly, making them appear even softer. Rei grits his teeth. Can’t smile more than the usual :>.

“That’s…”, Koga starts, and goes back to full frown, “Cool, I’ll do it, now _get out_ , it’s my classroom.”

Rei can’t handle it and smiles, with zero subtlety and the power of a three thousand lumens light bulb. Thank gods he’s only facing Koga. “But of course”, he chirps, and does exactly that, pushing Koga in front of him. “There, I have gotten out, and you with me, doggie!” He grabs Koga’s shoulders firmly and turns him in the general direction of the club room. “ _And I’m not letting you go, you little truant_.”

There it is. The shame. He can never talk to Narukami-kun again, out of sheer fear of being given the Look.

Koga stumbles on his own feet as Rei pushes him on ( _what was that about calm and dignity?_ ), and complains, but it’s the regular set of insults and regular degree of thrashing around that ends with _let go of me I can fucking walk on my own!_. Maybe his eyes are a bit wider, or maybe Rei is just imagining things.

“Do you know, my sweet doggie”, he starts, closes his eyes for a second and prays to all the gods for some chill, “how much your master missed you? How sad he was that you weren’t at the practice yesterday? Aoi-kuns weren’t there either, and I was so lonely, doggie! _I even cried a little_ ”, he adds, voice properly wet and shaky, “And I was so sad, my doggie, and so lonely, that you know what I did? You know?” (Repetition is the key to understanding) “I went home, and cuddled with my _new doggie_ , that’s what!”

Koga, to Rei’s endless surprise, doesn’t shrug or say something like _I don’t care, and I’m not your goddamn dog, dumbass!_ , but instead:

“Figured as much”, he mutters quietly, as if to himself, then blinks when he doesn’t hear Rei wailing anymore.

“Oh”, Rei sighs. Out of all the outcomes, this is one he expected the least. “Oh, Ritsu told you? I knew it, he adores her too! Those tiny paws–”

“What”, Koga says. Rei stops.

“He didn’t show you any photos…?”

Koga’s still staring at him, except the confusion slowly morphs into terror. _I said something wrong???_ , Rei thinks, and his hand subconsciously reaches for his hair in a nervous reaction, before he realizes it’s all in a tight French braid.

“Non? Non-chan? My smaller doggie?”, Rei tries, and Koga’s eyes are the biggest he’s ever seen.

“You have a dog”, he blurts out finally, and his hand hovers around his face for a second before he tousles his bangs. He’s completely red and Rei reddens as well, though not out of solidarity.

“I do, but… are you okay, doggie?”, he asks, and Koga does something between a gasp and a scoff, and if he’s about to tell Rei off for, for example, making fuss about shit that isn’t there, it doesn’t really succeed, as the noise certainly makes Rei even more concerned. “Maybe let’s get something to eat”, he decides. His body clearly signals that he should refuel it, and even though he doesn’t really feel like eating, fainting in front of Koga doesn’t seem like a good idea either.

Koga makes another choked noise of offended protest. “I’m _fine_ , I don’t–”

“I’m not”, Rei shrugs, and it feels like _ah, too much_ ; Koga doesn’t need to know that. “I mean, I’m not hungry, but I haven’t eaten since this morning, so”, he trails off, wincing a little. Too much, and then too much again; the truth is that he hasn’t eaten since last night, and that’s another unnecessary information. Koga did sometimes nag him about not eating enough, but back then he could laugh it off and tell him his sweet sincere concern is making him cry. But admitting to that for real feels… bad. “Do you want to see the pictures?”, he tempts, fishing a phone out of his bag.

Koga is either extremely enthusiastic about Non, or reacts to both parts of what Rei said at once, because he says _What the fuck, yes!_ and spends the rest of the way to the school store calling Non _a funny kid_ or _oh shit she’s so fucking tiny_ and bestowing dog wisdom upon Rei, for example what tools to use to groom her fur, what food is absolutely, decidedly a no ( _give her chocolate and I’m coming to your house and ripping your head off, this shit is_ bad) and that a puppy must be taught that biting is restricted for toys only, no matter how cute it is trying to eat your hand. At some point, Rei forgets to make appreciating noises and praise how knowledgeable his doggie is about his kin, because what he’s saying is not only interesting and useful, but also– the way he speaks. The way his frown disappears again, and it’s like he’s not even his usual wary self, but a rare version of Koga, focused on talking about something he loves, like that man from the music store, with the hands and with the voice. Rei feels warm again, and has to bite his lip to avoid smiling.

He just wants to get something simple, enough not to starve, like a carton of tomato juice and a donut, but Koga calls him an idiot and almost forces him to get a bento that looks like it could feed an army. He says something along the lines of _if you’re in a shitty condition you’re only going to embarrass us_ and _faint again and I’ll kill you_ , and the bento is pretty cheap because it’s late, so Rei shrugs and buys it. He initially thinks about taking his revenge and feeding Koga like a lovely puppy he is, but decides against it for obvious reasons (although he does run out of free space in his stomach and Koga finishes his pork cutlets, and Rei suddenly understands Narukami-kun, because he _really_ does look adorable when he’s chewing).

They grab a few effects from the club room and rent a soundproof practice room – or rather, book it up seconds before Hasumin gets to it. Rei winks at him and pushes Koga inside, then, as Koga unpacks his guitar, wonders in cold terror if the wink was in any way suggestive. He searches for any signs of discomfort in Koga, but he can’t find any, maybe aside from Koga playing with the guitar bag’s zipper. So either he suddenly gained superb emotion-hiding skills, or. Or things between then aren’t that bad as Rei thought.

He doesn’t have lyrics yet, and Koga argues with him for a bit, saying it doesn’t make sense to write the music first and lyrics later because _you end up trying to match the lyrics to the rhythm and that’s shitty_ , to which Rei simply replies that he must have never tried to write lyrics, and Koga – scoffs, and reddens again (Rei finds his hand gripping the notebook tighter than necessary). Koga points out that the short solo in the middle that Rei originally planned for a violin of piano could be revamped a bit and given as a center to Adonis. He spends five minutes trying to contact him before he remembers that as he’s a little brother to three big sisters, Adonis’ relationship with his phone is different that most people’s and gives up, and that’s exactly when Rei turns on mobile data in his phone and receives a message from Arashi that’s another thousand of heart and meat emoji and a selfie of him and Adonis, both smiling, both brighter than the lamps in the second practice room, both with parfaits in front of them.

“Huh”, says Koga when Rei shows him the picture, sighing about children abandoning him left and right, soon he’ll be completely alone, old and helpless, “Am I next”, he adds, much quieter. Or at least that’s what Rei hears, so he makes a questioning noise. Koga sputters intensely and almost hits himself on the guitar neck. “Nothing”, he mutters and turns around to rummage through his school bag, only to find a tuner which he carefully applies on his perfectly tuned guitar. Usually he only needs to pluck a string a few times before practice to decide if it’s good to go or not.

Oh. _Ohhh_.

_Dude, no. Shut up. You’re not twelve. I absolutely_ am _twelve_.

“Why?”, he asks, leaning in maybe too fast and too loud, _shut up, shut up, you’re not twelve, fourteen, okay, but not twelve, calm down_ , “Are you interested, doggie? Narukami-kun is really cute indeed”, he continues, very fast, so Koga only manages to make a really stupid shocked face, “But I’m afraid you’re in for a disappointment, Narukami-kun seems to be interested in Adonis-kun, he even asked me for advice, you know?” He pauses for a breath.

“No–”

“Or maybe it’s Ado–”

“ _No!_ ”, Koga gasps and waves a hand at Rei, like he wanted to whack him upside the head but changed his mind in the last second, “What the fuck are you dumb you– fuckin’ creep! I’m– this is– you-you should focus on unit activities and not on this– stupid shit!”

Koga is really red. Rei is, too, and on top of that, his heart is racing and his cheeks hurt – he probably looks like a maniac – and when he breathes, it comes out shaky.

“Doggie!”, he coos, hands flying to cup Koga’s cheeks but he moves them up, thank gods, moves them up to ruffle Koga’s hair and put his all into it, because it was him – it was him! – _him!!!_ – he didn’t do anything wrong– aside from, what it seemed to Koga, dating Narukami-kun – “Doggie, doggie, doggie”, he laughs, and he probably, no, absolutely and with all the certainty in the world, looks like a creepy idiot now, why isn’t Koga running away or punching him yet, but the giddiness has to pour out somehow – “You care so much about UNDEAD, I’m so moved I’m going to cry! You’re such a good doggie for me, such a good friend for Adonis-kun, does that mean you actually somehow respect Kaoru-kun as a senpai too?”

“ _No_ , you dumb fuck!”, Koga shouts, ripping Rei’s hands from his head and pushing him away, and landing a painful one on his head as well, why not, “What-- the _fuck_ is wrong with you, that piece of shit is an asshole, I’ll _maybe_ respect him if he puts _twice_ as much effort as we do! And that will never happen ‘cause he’s _never_ at the fuckin’ _practice_ – _why the fuck are you laughing?!_ ”

Rei is laughing because he’s in love. Very much so.

“You’re not even better! You jus’ woke up and got that dumbass braid and came to bother me, huh?! I don’t know how they haven’t expelled you yet!”

Rei gasps in a/ fake offense and b/ genuine, entirely overwhelming emotion he can’t put a finger on, but what probably centers around the word braid, _he noticed he noti_ – _Rei Sakuma, calm down_ –

“How could you, doggie?!”, he cries, reaching out to grab Koga by the shoulders, dramatic as it should be, but Koga manages to crawl back, something quite impressing with a guitar in his lap, “I survived through seven hours – seven, doggie! – of classes both today and yesterday! I’m working hard, you know?! And it was you who skipped the practice yesterday, if I may remind you!”, he leans forward and does tha Narukami-kun finger jab, but it’s probably not as cute in his case because Koga only makes a face. Or he makes a face in general reaction to Rei. He brushes his bangs aside (it instantly flops back in his eyes). “Why the braid, does it look weird?”

“Huh”, Koga says, or rather: makes a surprised noise and it’s so soft, so cute, Rei wants to kiss it off his lips and al _so to find **god**_ , “No– I mean I don’t care, what the hell, instead of this dumb thing you should do somethin’ with your hair, it gets all in your face and ya can’t see shit–”

“Oh, really?”, Rei asks, sliding off Wataru’s hair tie (small, bright blue and made of something rubbery) from his hair, and promptly reaches to ruffle Koga’s bangs, “How about you, hm?”

Koga growls and slaps his hand away. Something in Rei reaches a peak, a limit of some sorts, and he laughs; not his mastered, cool laugh an actual oldschool vampire could have, but a real one, vibrant and vulnerable. He slaps a hand on his mouth and swallows nervously, _now you’re done it, calm down, calm the hell down, one step further and you’ll start spouting shit about collars and it’ll be seriously – honestly – the worst_ –

He chuckles darkly to calm himself down and starts actually untying the braid; Wataru must have a scalp made of iron, or maybe Rei isn’t used to tying his hair so high, because the skin of his head actually hurts, even though it hasn’t been that long. He looks down, embarrassed, and focuses on brushing his hair with fingers, but notices, out of the corner of his eye, that Koga’s not moving. Staring, Rei thinks, and his fingers stutter, but then– is it good staring. Probably not. And it’s as if he forgot every weird shit he’s done so far, because what happened in the last five minutes feels like the worst embarrassment of his life, burning him inside and outside.

As always, Koga nails the rhythm section perfectly, but the solo has a fast melody change and he can’t get it right. Rei isn’t necessarily attached to that section and offers to change it for something easier, because even though Koga won’t be playing live, it’s good to record it as soon as possible, but Koga snaps at him. _I’m not a fucking child, I’m gonna do it_ , he says, sharper than usual, and Rei blushes; it wasn’t normal of him either, suggesting to change something so easily. _Too soft and too easy_ , he tells himself, _only a misstep from creeping him out, thinking you want something from him, this is how gross bosses treat their young pretty secretaries when they want to use them_ , he thinks, even though he’s only seen this kind of stuff in the movies. It’s probably real, though, and Rei doesn’t want to be gross.

“Then I won’t accept anything but perfection”, he says, and Koga nods. Rei feels better too; because this it what it’s about.

It hurts just a little.

 

He ends up going home again, because he really wants to yell into something, and Non’s back seems a better and more sound-absorbing option than the bottom of the coffin.

“This is embarrassing. I’m embarrassing, and not doing this again”, he says to the ceiling and Non, then proceens to smile into his hands, make noises and roll on his bed (but only twice). “Look”, he continues, picking up the photo from the desk and showing it to Non, “this is my other doggie. He has tiny paws and light fur just like you and he’s got the cutest smile, see?”

Non sees. She is, however, more interested in the frame, in the physical sense, and she opens her sweet mouth to nibble on it. Rei puts the photo away and falls back on the bed, letting Non crawl on his torso and under his shirt. She walks up his chest and pops her head through the wide collar, which is when Rei’s tolerance ends and he shakes her out. She’s better on top of the shirt rather than under it.

Koga doesn’t hate him. Koga doesn’t hate him, Koga talked to him and only called him a creep and a dumbass and a dumb fuck, he didn’t push him away with clear disgust on his face and run away, or injure him, and he said his braid didn’t look weird– wait, no, that was an obvious overinterpretation, he called it dumb and only said _No_ because he was confused, but still – Rei didn’t feel hated. His chest and face feel warm and his cheeks hurt from smiling and it’s honestly one of the most pathetic things– but also no one sees it, save for Non, who is a good doggie (like all doggies) and won’t tell on him, so it’s like it’s not happening.

His phone vibrates and he almost jumps out of his body.

_r u gon eat_ , Ritsu texts, next door. _dont. so theres more 4 us_

“Are you seeing this?”, he asks Non tearfully, and she sniffs the screen. She sneezes after that, and it’s quite a good reaction. “My own flesh and blood, see, darling?”

_no. i think ill do some shopping_ , he replies, and no more than five seconds later, he receives a reply: _good. dont rush back_

Rei groans in the pillow and sets Non on the floor – that way, the worst that can happen to her is tumbling down the stairs, and not falling from a tall bed – and takes a quick shower. His hair is still okay, and it’s curled pretty well from the braid, so he just ties it in a ponytail, grabs some clothes that don’t scream _I’m an ido_ l (which is easy, with a wardrobe consisting of white, dark blue, grey in at least five shades and black, everything of not too good but not too bad either quality) and leaves, except when he does, he bumps into Isara-kun before Ritsu tugs him inside. Rei doesn’t know what power takes him from here to the shopping mall, but it’s definitely not his own.

He doesn’t really know what he came for, so he drops by the uniqlo store and tries on a few white t-shirts and black polo shirts. He tries to decide between loose fitting size and a ‘just right’ one, decides to take just one of each and spends a considerable amount of time fixing his hair in the fitting stall and wondering if the ponytail makes his ears stand out even more. He leaves with his hair down.

He loiters around for a while, because a few shirts feel not enough for a shopping trip, and decides to get something to eat. That means fast food, because he doesn’t feel fancy enough to go to a famires on his own, so he gets a simple set from McD’s ( _how am I going to eat that all oh my god_ ), sits down and checks his phone, trying to look very serious when in reality he’s diligently liking Narukami-kun’s insta photos. There’s a familiar laugh and he raises his head, trying to locate its source, and finds Kiryuu-kun with his color-reversed junior slash boyfriend. They’re talking animatedly over a small hill of fries surrounded by several hamburgers and two tall colas, making it look like they deliberately set it up to resemble an ancient landscape and Rei feels, for some reason, sad as hell. About Koga, about what happens after graduation, about everything being undecided and unknown. And maybe things are better with Ritsu, but he still kicked him out to host Isara-kun instead. The same little Isara-kun who saw his black guitar and black (electronic) drum set and told Ritsu – in a whisper that was probably not meant to be heard by Rei – that _your brother is cool, Ricchan_.

Somehow he manages to finish the hamburger and cola, but the fries are almost untouched, so he wraps them in a tissue and stuffs in his backpack, hoping the eventual grease stains on the shirts won’t be that hard to wash.

He stops, counts his money, makes a beeline back to the uniqlo store, where he makes an even stronger beeline to the outer wear section and purchases a (yet another) biker jacket. It doesn’t have ripped sleeves or cool badges like his other two, and Rei doesn’t know if that’s bad or good. He then decides to walk back home, because apparently seeing classmates having fun with their boyfriends, while he’s alone in a McD’s makes his petty envious idiot self depressed enough to do that to his body.

It’s cold. He tries to cover his ears (bat-sized, stupidly sensitive to cold, probably as red as a stop sign) with hair, but it’s thin and very sad and whatever he does, it gets blown back by the wind anyway. It’s cold and he thinks about Koga rubbing his red nose with his red hands. _Why aren’t you wearing gloves_ , he thinks, but it’s probably the same reason why he himself doesn’t. He wants to warm Koga’s hands in his pockets, and for Koga to sleep on him on a train drive home, but also he wants the opposite. His phone still has the mobile data turned on, so before he realizes it, a few messages exchanged with Narukami-kun ( _today we went out for parfaits and ohhh my god im so in love and so nervoussssss ughhh im gonna!!! ask him out properly on monday I HOPE…….. i also hope wknd is enough to make my skin qt enough please pray for this useless gay_ ) and fifteen minutes of using navigation kills his phone battery for good and he’s lost. It’s cold and dark outside, he only has cold fries and fake leather in his backpack, and he’s lost. And tired.

After a while he finds someone who can give him actual directions to the closest train station, but it’s still far and he almost dies walking there, and it takes a while for the train to arrive and reach his station, so he’s cold and unhappy for, summed up, over an hour.

“But I was _joking_ ”, Ritsu wheezes, eyes twinkling like it’s Christmas, when he comes back looking exactly as miserable as he feels, and Isara-kun, still here, chastises him in a loud whisper and asks Rei if he’s alright. Rei doesn’t answer and only regains the power to speak and move not on autopilot after half an hour of soaking in hot water.

(He falls asleep the second his body hits the bed, but in the morning, he’s covered with a thick duvet and supplied with a warm dog by his side. He makes loving noises towards Ritsu and calls him his sweetest cochampignon, and Ritsu, feeling fully justified, kicks him solidly in the shin.)

He spends the weekend applying face and hair masks in outstanding amounts (completely ignoring the risk of potential breakouts), practicing the drum line (and recording it just in case, even though there’s better – any – equipment at school) and writing the lyrics – though mostly it’s him stopping himself from taking something from every song he’s listened to that week, mashing it all together and throwing it on the paper. It’s not a love song, and it’s not a song about overwhelming darkness, so he considers it both a success and a ? in terms of other members accepting it. Kaoru-kun usually doesn’t have any objections, but it’s because he’s almost a ghost member at this point and has once refused to come to the costume fitting, saying that if it’s a bit loose on Rei then he guesses it should be okay. Adonis-kun is, on the other hand, too polite to say anything, but it’s because of that Rei wants him to be okay with the lyrics the most. Koga is… either strongly in or strongly against, and negotiating with him is fairly easy, provided Rei has enough energy to go in his full Idioms, Doggie mode. He gave up in melodark and it ended up with too many English phrases that didn’t necessarily have much sense, as far as his English skills are concerned, but at least singing it live is a foolproof way to fire up the audience.

Rei goes to sleep late and wonders if his mother doesn’t hate him a little – or a little bit more than usually, depending on the point of view – because Non is already waiting by his bed when he enters the room after a bath. She belongs to his mother, officially, and even he would be jealous if someone who doesn’t even come home that ofter stole his newest toy. But then – his mother doesn’t let her leave hair on every single article of clothing she owns, doesn’t show her photos of cute boys with dimples both in the front and in the back, and doesn’t even spend hours calling her the sweetest pet names she can come up with, tickling her belly or giving her used socks to bite. (Not eat!)

Non finds herself a perfect place – close to Rei’s chest and with easy access to his hand – and curls in a soft, cloudy ball. Rei pets her automatically and thinks about Koga. Because he wants him, and even though he’s told himself tens of times that he shouldn’t, his stupid behaviour around Koga is enough of a proof that he doesn’t really believe that. He can’t decide how to act, because one day he tells himself to give it up, and the other he acts like an absolute idiot, or the opposite: he gets closer to Koga and has a normal conversation with him, then spends the rest of the day being useless because he realizes he’s going to graduate and part for a year. Or more. Or ever. But he’s a complete hypocrite and already imagines trying to mantain a relationship like that, and–

–and Shu Itsuki should never be told that, because his frail body would fly away to lands unknown, carried by his inflated balloon of an ego – but he’s right. He’s always right, pastel bastard.

“Koga”, Rei sighs into the dark, absolutely not like a lovestruck idiot, but tiredly, because he’s tired of his own shit, of course; and it’s sweet. It sounds like a kiss.

“No, _Nonnie_ , not you. _Not you_ –”

 

_PLEASE!!!! tell me ur free bc i told evey1 im eatin lunch w/ u n im gonna DIE IN A MINU_

Rei receives this message the very second the bell for the lunch break rings, and even though his phone is set to vibrate, the teacher sends him a daring look and continues the lecture for five more minutes before finally letting them go (and immediately scolding Tsukinaga-kun for _making noises like a monkey in a jungle, you’re eighteen!_ ).

_i am why?_ , he replies, and Narukami-kun must have way more fingers than he claims to possess, because the next message arrives maybe three seconds after.

_window near stairs w/ the flower!!!_

It takes Rei a while to figure out that the flower mentioned is simply a big succulent in a pot, strategically set between one flight of stairs and another, perfectly enabling eventual couples to snog with only fifty percent chance of being seen and given condemning looks. Narukami-kun is already here, sitting cross-legged on his uniform blazer with a lunch box in his lap, biting his index finger and Rei feels somehow comforted.

“I take it you’re a bit nervous”, he says softly, and Narukami-kun jumps.

“Sit down, Rei-chan, and comfort me!”, he moans, hitting his knees with open palms, and Rei throws his blazer on the floor next to him. “Mika-chan already tried, and he said everything will be alright because I’m amazing and there’s no way Adonis-chan doesn’t want me but this is _not_ comforting at all, I am not comforted! _Rei-chan!_ ”

Rei cocks his head. “It’s not like he’s wrong”, he starts slowly. Narukami-kun hits him with the lunch box lid. The lunch box has a mayonnaise salad in it, so Rei gets some in his hair; Narukami-kun makes a strangled noise of horror and vigorously pats it off his head. Rei holds his hand for a moment (warm, soft, with manicured nails). “I’m wondering why didn’t you come to Ko– doggie with that. With everything, actually. He knows Adonis-kun more than I do.”

Narukami-kun raises his eyebrows at the tongue slip, then shrugs. “It’s… something else”, he says, trying to stab a cherry tomato with the plastic fork. The tomato slips away and he gives up with a sigh. “It’s just… we’ve talked a lot and he’s really fun once he opens up a bit, I think you’d be surprised… But I never asked him about a– oh, yeah, take it, I have enough of that slippery bastard”, he winces and continues, while Rei eats the tomato lovingly, “–but I never asked him if he ever had a girlfriend or a boyfriend or– oh god, I should be only telling this to Mika-chan or Izumi-chan, right? You don’t–”

Rei motions at him to continue, a bit impatiently, and he fixes his hair, fingers shaking. “You’re aware that you’re not obliged to do it, neither today or ever, aren’t you”, Rei asks, sliding the box closer to him. Narukami-kun only drums on the rim with his fingers.

“So the thiiiing is”, Narukami-kun continues, sitting like a proper lady and staring into the box, “I don’t… I don’t know if he even likes boys – ohgodthisissoembarrassing why am I telling this to you – but if I… if I ask him out and he says no he’ll be really weirded out right? Like… that’s really awkward and he won’t want to talk to me anymore– I mean he will but like– out of obligation–”

“Adonis-kun is not like this”, Rei says and laughs a little, because Narukami-kun is cute. “If anything, he’d be worried about hurting you with his rejection. But I don’t think– well, maybe that’s too much, I don’t talk with my children about love – oh. Should I? Either way, he certainly wouldn’t stop liking you as a friend.”

“That’s the _point_ ”, Narukami-kun whines, “As a _friend_. There’s this– Souma-chan, he– Adonis-chan really likes and admires him, but he only tells me to attend practice more and I think he’s angry– oh god”, Narukami-kun gasps and sits straight, staring ahead, terrified, “ _Oh god_. He hates me. I’m not doing this. I’m dying. I–”

Rei bursts out laughing, and even though he tries to cover that with a cough, Narukami-kun makes an emotional noise and slaps him on the shoulder.

“Rei-chan!!! You’re horrible, I’m _leaving_...!”

“Adonis-kun rarely gets angry, or maybe: never”, Rei explains, picking up another cherry tomato, “In most of cases, he’d hide his emotions not ot offend anyone, right? So if it seems he’s angry at you, it must be because he’s comfortable enough to show that.” He pats Narukami-kun’s hand, just twice. “And probably that you should attend practice more often. Maybe he wants to spend more time with you, hm?”

Narukami-kun blushes; both he and Shu look soft with pink dusting their cheeks. “Or he’s really annoyed”, he mutters.

“ _Or_ he doesn’t seem so, but can read people pretty well. For example Kaoru-kun, he skips often because he’s busy with his, how to put it, gentlemanly affairs.” Narukami-kun must be very impressed by Rei’s word choice, because all traces of distress vanish from his face for a moment. “And when Adonis-kun says he wants him to participate more, it’s because we’re an unit. No matter what kind of an activity you’re doing, it’s hard to do it well when you’re incomplete, is that correct?”

Narukami-kun nods, and finally takes a bite out of his cutlets.

“But club activities usually can be done on your own, unless you’re a team sports club member preparing for a tournament”, Rei says and stretches. A teacher walks down the stairs, so they scramble to stand up and greet her; she greets them back, but also tells not to sit on that cold floor. “I’m not an expert”, Rei continues, sitting on that cold floor anyway, “but I think you can exercise, equipment or not, alone, and the same goes for cleaning. Anyone could do it, especially Adonis-kun, since he’s so strong, hence–?”

“Hence–”, Narukami-kun repeats, and blushes brightly, the answer seemingly clear to him now.

“And would he agree to, ah, hang out with you if he didn’t like you? Would he smile like that?”

Narukami-kun turns away and – oh – even his ears are red. He looks like a little strawberry in a parfait, and you’d have to be devoid of senses not to want to snatch it for yourself.

“Didn’t you also mention that he laughed out loud? I haven’t seen that, you know. I guess it’s pretty rare–”

“Stop it, stop it, I get it already…!”

Another portion of shoulder slaps. Rei massages his shoulder and brushes his hair back in an exaggerated motion, and Narukami-kun huffs.

“Alright”, he says slowly, “Alright, then what about that– do you remember how I looked like last year?”

Rei remembers.

“And do you remember how Koga-chan–”

Oh no.

At this point, _oh no_ is an emotion, and Rei expresses it rather loudly and repeatedly, patting Narukami-kun on his shoulders in a manner he must have subconsciously stolen from Nito-kun.

“I don’t need that”, he mutters, and Narukami-kun smiles brightly.

“If you didn’t need that, we wouldn’t be having the conversation”, he chirps and pops a small carrot in his mouth; but the longer he chews, the smaller his smile gets, until it’s not there anymore. It looks pretty funny. “It would be easier with you”, he says after a while, quietly, then moves closer to the monster succulent. Rei blinks; has the topic of the conversation changed? “I wouldn’t be so nervous.”

Rei is quiet, waiting for him to continue, but Narukami-kun only digs around in his lunch box, then moves a bit of the mayonnaise salad onto a piece of cutlet and eats it with a fork.

“About…?”

“Aren’t we the same, Rei-chan?”, Narukami-kun asks, rubbing his nose. He relaxes his posture a bit and looks more like a high school boy with accidentally good skin than an idol. He brings his hand to his face as if he was about to start biting his nails, but he only brushes off an invisible speck of dirt off, his uniform. “I mean, like– the hanging out. The date.”

The third tomato almost slips out of Rei’s hands. This is not something he expected. This is not something he even thought about, because– maybe before, when Narukami-kun casually asked if he wouldn’t be up for some shopping. Back then he was wondering, because it was shortly after Halloween and Narukami-kun looked at him in that particular way, but he changed the topic to Koga so quick, Rei thought– but oh. It made sense.

“I mean. Or not. I don’t know. Sometimes I can’t read you at all, Rei-chan. I think you can only read someone when it’s not about you”, Narukami-kun sighs, and Rei’s fingers start playing with the tomato subconsciously. “But I– thought that you were… vaguely interested. And I was vaguely interested, and I thought that I’d date you.” His eyes quickly dart to Rei, then back to the lunch box. Yet another food-themed meaningful conversation about feelings. “Not because, like. Not because I’m in love, but just because you were there.”

He rubs his nose again and clears his throat, then sighs. “This sure doesn’t sound weird, does it!”, he laughs, and digs his fork into another piece of the cutlet.

“Not really”, Rei shrugs, and finds his voice surprisingly calm. And ungrandfatherly, but he’s never heard any elderly gentleman complaining that dating is hard, so he doesn’t have a standard to follow. “It’s… just to try this dating thing, right? Go out shopping or to the cinema, such things”, he says, and Narukami-kun stops chewing. “I was wondering if you think I’m… desperate?”

Narukami-kun chews very fast, then swallows. “No, I– I thought the same. That if– I just randomly thought that–” He looks around, checking if no one’s coming up or down the stairs, but it’s still lunch break and most people are busy eating. “That maybe… if Adonis-chan doesn’t like me, then I can try with you. I wouldn’t mind! You’re cute. A bit less when you start talking, but so is Izumi-chan, or His Highness, and they’re both taken, so…”

“By each other”, Rei adds softly, “Please don’t finish this sentence. Cute was enough. You’re adorable too”, he adds, and Narukami-kun closes his eyes and makes a face – Rei doesn’t know if he’s embarrassed or amused.

“Yes, that explains a lot”, Narukami-kun says with a sigh, and Rei doesn’t want to ask if he’s talking about Tsukinaga-kun and Sena-kun or his own charms. “Either way, I… thought about that. Koga-chan. And that you’d graduate, and… that would be the most cruel thing I could have done, or… I kinda did that already. With how mad he was at me. And Rei-chan, he really loves you, okay?”

_I know_ , Rei thinks. It’s just a thought that randomly appears in his head, but he stops breathing and there’s a tug in his chest, like a habit of an athlete to catch the thing that’s being thrown at them – to say, _No, he doesn’t_ , but Rei doesn’t act on it. Instead, he reaches for a piece of Narukami-kun’s cutlet with his bare hand and snatches it. Narukami-kun blinks and sends him a look that should absolutely kill him on the spot, but somehow doesn’t. Rei moves closer to the plant as well.

“And if I… asked Adonis-chan out next year, both he and Koga-chan would be upset, because like, he… Adonis-chan would feel like a leftover, no, a… second option. And I think he’d really dislike me for hurting Koga-chan, so… yeah, so I don’t want that!”, he adds louder, and pats his hands clean, even though his lunch box isn’t even half empty. “And I want a dessert. Yep! I’m going to get a dessert. Come with me, Rei-chan!”

“I’m not really hungry”, Rei answers, and Narukami-kun gives him a look that somehow says both _utter disbelief_ and _I never said you would eat with me_.

“I’m going to get myself a lovely cupcake, because I deserve it, and because I’m going to _win_ ”, he says and jumps to his feet. Rei picks up their uniforms and follows him down the stairs with only mild complaining, because Narukami-kun is fast like a centipede and trying to keep up with him almost sends Rei and his frail elderly legs down the stairs much faster than he initially anticipated.

Narukami-kun, in a series of events that surprised no one, ends up getting his cupcake more than once.

 

So the song is still incomplete.

The vocals are all complete – even though Rei feels bad interrupting Narukami-kun’s little date (that consists of him eating cookies that seem homemade with speed that would give Sena-kun an aneurysm and Adonis-kun showing him videos of how baklava is made), he easily gets Adonis-kun to sing. His voice is, as always, amazing, like a shallow lake of a thick, sweet liquid, and when he hits the high notes, it’s like someone poured sunlight into it. Rei gathers the twins and needed instruments and they record the bass line as well as the keyboard line that could have been done by Rei, but Yuuta-kun makes a face that clearly says he’s going to Misbehave if he doesn’t get to play it. Rei sighs, because _children are lovely_ , but Yuuta-kun makes it sound even cooler than Rei planned it, so he ruffles his hair like there’s no tomorrow and even plans to squeeze his cheeks, but he manages to run away. Kaoru-kun tells him to just wait for the right moment, implying: _because I have so many dates I barely get to breathe_ , but Shu sells him mercilessly for a fresh asparagus salad and Rei firmly escorts Kaoru-kun to the recording studio, whispering sweet nothings about the precious studio minutes he has physically paid for vanishing pointlessly in the void with each second he spends on fighting Kaoru-kun’s resistance. In the end, Rei manages to transport him in the studio, where he sings his parts two times, once normally and again for harmonies, and leaves, with a strained smile and heartfelt wishes for Rei to find someone who’s better suited for his manhandling.

Koga is the only one who doesn’t come up to Rei with his part. Not that Rei’s in a hurry, because it’s too late to include the song in Chocolat Festival anyway, but it’s still strange, considering he was always first, no matter how much he made a show of complaining. This time Rei doesn’t want to panic, but he kind of worries either way, because: _that_ was on a Friday. Koga had two days of weekend to think about Rei messing up his bangs, laughing and, frankly speaking, being an embarrassing idiot, and arrive at a conclusion: creepy. He even called him a creep before. And that was because Rei… absolutely had to play a matchmaking grandma.

_Rei Sakuma, you absolute dumbass_.

But he uses a temporary track in the place of Koga’s guitar solo and begins mixing. On Monday, Koga isn’t even practicing his part, changing the strings and doing general maintenance instead, and Rei doesn’t really mind. Koga sits on the floor and lays his guitar on a piece of soft-looking material in front of him, like he’s practicing a religious ritual, and his face is so focused yet softly happy that it might as well be true. His movements are smooth and precise, like he was a host at a tea ceremony, not a tired, sweaty high schooler cleaning his guitar, and when at some point he stops to scratch his neck, Rei feels like he saw a high priest do something forbidden, but not forbidden enough to feel offended about it.

Sometimes Rei remembers, even too well, that Koga is a real, physical boy with his horrible cuticles and mild pimples here and there, a boy who cracks his joints out of sheer boredom and has only one cheek dimple when he smiles; and sometimes, he looks at him and sees the sun personified. Loud, irritating in a way you can easily say _I can’t bear to look at him_ about, hot in more than one way, and bright. Not in the way Isara-kun is bright, because his radiance is gentle yet steady and even someone as unused to the light as Ritsu easily comes out of his shell only to look at him, be with him. No, Koga’s intense like a stadium reflector, hitting you in the face, leaving you blind and dumbfounded and even if you turn around, its light is so strong and unwavering that you can still see it in front of you, and– no, this is a bad metaphor, stadium reflectors are horrible and cold and if Rei was attacked by one after waking up, he’d bolt out of his bed as soon as possible to avoid it, meanwhile Koga… no, a bad joke, Koga succesfully wakes Rei up quite often, and his methods are similarly aggressive. It’s just that–

–it’s just that Koga is warm. And he smells nice, Rei knows, because once again he’s an animal without an ounce of self-control, except as opposed to Koga himself, he knows how to hide it. His small hands are always warm, just like Rei’s are always cold, and even his sweat smells nice, Rei knows, because once he used Koga’s uniform blazer as a pillow and he felt more like a twelve-year-old girl than twelve-year-old girls do, and even though he woke up when Koga was in the room, he had, simply had to pretend he was still asleep until he left, because horrible, horrible and bad, but also: he. Him. The existence called Koga Oogami.

That loves him.

It hurts.

Rei stops staring at Koga like a loon and turns his attention to the laptop; its screen is black and he can’t bring himself to tap the touchpad to wake it up. Shu Itsuki is always right, and he’s a coward who can’t decide between quiet almost-euphoria and absolute resignation, who has everything he wants on a golden plate right in front of him but keeps on pushing it away, not just people, but everything.

I’m going to give it my all, he says, and he’s lying, because he’s never giving his all even though literally nothing is stopping him, at all. Aside from his own dumbass self.

Go fuck a croissant, Shu Itsuki.

Rei sighs, because maybe this time it’ll work and lift at least a little of this chest pain, taps the touchpad a few times and looks at Koga, for the last time before working, for real, from the start to finish.

Koga looks back, and then he doesn’t, wiping the fretboard in quick, round swipes.

 

Most people don’t like Mondays, because: beginning of another week of torture, but for Rei, it’s Thursday that gets the horrible trophy. Not only it’s not Friday, even though Wednesday is already over and by all laws of logic and everything, it should be, but there’s also PE on the first class. Tuesday is theoretically even worse, because PE is right after the lunch break, but Rei rarely eats lunch and takes a nap instead, so it’s not as bad. But in the morning? And free class? Usually meaning volleyball, usually meaning _Sakuma, this is not dodgeball_ or _Sakuma, serve like this again and I’ll personally make sure you get held back again_? Rei has enough.

The only good thing that gets him through the day is that at some point, it’ll be over, and that one floor down, Adonis-kun and Narukami-kun are lovingly risking a penalty cleaning duty by messaging each other during class. On Tuesday, he finally saw Adonis-kun laughing, warm and covering his mouth a/ like a well-behaved lady would, and b/ as if Narukami-kun wasn’t looking at him like he wanted to kiss every inch of his being, and he can’t even bring himself to be envious.

Crawling back to the music club with six hours old sweat still on his body, he wonders if Koga is playing again, just like the previous day. He was playing the solo on Wednesday, but when Rei got close enough to hear it clearly through the door, he quickly started another exercise tune, as if he needed that. Rei knows Koga has a keen nose and can recognize his smell from distance – he’s spoken about it before, like it was a completely normal thing, and Rei just couldn’t help teasing him about it – but even with that, it seems a bit too much, unless somehow Koga and Ritsu aren’t being angry doggies/cruel baby brothers and Rei really smells.

Is Koga trying to play only when Rei isn’t around? Why would he even do that?

But before Rei can enter the panic mode, though, he realizes that there’s music coming from the club room, and the guitarist is indubitably Koga. He slows down, in case Koga was recognizing his presence from the footsteps and not his questionable body odor, and stops quietly right by the door, resting his head on the cold wall.

And this is it.

He’s playing it, but– differently, and Rei needs a while to recognize it.

Once again, it’s not something Rei put lots of thought into. The song came to his mind randomly, and when it started taking shape, he simply added a guitar solo that would sound right. He didn’t write it just for Koga, the only special thing in it is Adonis-kun’s solo. It’s not a bad song, absolutely not, because Rei kills these as soon as he realizes they’re bad, but it doesn’t have a special purpose. If they ever release it, it’d probably land as a coupling track, or even a sub-coupling track on a triple single.

It’s not like Rei doesn’t know how a guitar sounds like, played by a skillful guitarist, but Koga must be either having the time of his life, or bored enough to try everything there is. The solo is longer and more dense than originally, quick notes trickling like a swift little river and the whammy bar abused until it reverberates to the end, screaming and howling like a living creature Koga’s hurting with some sort of perverse passion, ripping out its insides, squeezing them with his hands and watching the blood leaking between his clasped fingers. Or drowning something, or putting them apart piece by piece, bone by bone, until there’s nothing left but blood soaking in the ground and Rei runs out of scenarios, but it’s somehow unsettling to the core and also hot. He wants Koga to rip his throat out and eat his heart, if possible. If possible, while smiling.

Koga keeps on inflicting fatal wounds onto his guitar – the guitar he got from Rei – and Rei looks around, because he really doesn’t want any innocent first year to witness him morphing through the door of his own club out of sheer arousal. Luckily, no one seems to be around, not even the twins, who should have finished their classes at the same time as he and Koga. _They’re probably already inside_ , Rei thinks with the part of his mind that isn’t occupied by the vision of Koga being blissfully violent towards him, and also: _and there’s the best part, wonder what will he do with it_.

But Koga does nothing, or rather attempts to do something – quite grand, it turns out, quite too grand, even, because instead of the coolest moment in the solo, there’s a squeak, a few beats of stunned silence, and a no less stunned _fuck!_.

Rei laughs ( _Koga..._ ) and runs his hands up his face; arousal dies down in him like a ice cube thrown under a stream of hot water, because once again, Koga is not a god, but a human boy with careless fingers.

He walks on Koga trying to remove his guitar from himself one-handed; he jumps when he realizes he’s not alone in the room anymore, and hits his leg on the metal part of the chair. Ah.

“Sit down, I’ll take care of that”, Rei says, leaving his bag on the other chair, and Koga sputters, hovering over his chair, his body telling him to sit the fuck down, his pride telling him to do everything but that.

“What the fuck–”, Koga rasps when Rei takes a first aid kit from the drawer, “Were you fucking eavesdropping”, he spits in the end and drops heavily on the chair before Rei carefully detaches the guitar from his body.

“I believe it’s not a soundproof room”, Rei hums, opening the box to look for what’s needed. The hydrogen peroxide bottle is already half empty and Rei winces. The kit was bought at the beginning of the year, and he doesn’t remember anyone getting his hand cut off or having full-body wounds, and that means someone shrugged and used it to leave their piercings in overnight, even though he repeatedly asked them not to. He sighs. “And also that it was quite a nice thing you did there”, he adds. _To put it lightly_.

Koga’s finger is bleeding; it must have slid down the string when he tried to access a note quickly, and it cut the skin slightly below the hardened part of his fingertip. Rei holds out his palm, but Koga doesn’t move.

“That?” He makes a face as if Rei just insulted him. “It’s… nah. It doesn’t even fit the tempo, or anythin’.”

“True”, Rei nods and sighs, wondering if he’ll get to do Koga’s hand this week. He pours some hydrogen peroxide on his hands in a sincere attempt to get them clean, and in that exact moment he remembers the solution, aside from being nice to tending to the wounds of high school warriors, is also lightly corrosive. He clicks his tongue, looking for a tissue to wipe his dumb hands in, but to no avail. Ah, well. If the twins come soon, they’d be in for a treat: seeing Sakuma-senpai and his white fingers. “But I like it, so either way I want to use it for something.”

Koga looks at him like he was an idiot, which, at this point, is absolutely correct. “It’s not ready yet”, he insists with a face so earnest that Rei would gladly spill any corrosive substance on his body to see it again. He seems to realize that, though – the earnestness, not Rei’s useless gay thoughts, thank gods – and attempts to fix that in his usual rough boy style. “It’s not my fuckin’ fault, you wrote it! I’m doin’ what I can, alright?! You said you want perfect so you’re fucking gonna get perfect, you– _fuck!_ ”

Koga shudders; he made a fist while talking, perhaps out of habit, and so forgot that it’s not exactly the best idea when your fingers are out of commission. (Potentially dangerous, but) _Cute_. He flushes even deeper and Rei blinks rapidly to get rid of his his own blush.

“Gimme your paw, doggie?”, he says, and Koga gives him a death glare, but offers his hand in a gesture of a disgusted monarch gracing a filthy scum with his holy body. Rei takes it gently (Koga winces, because he’s not a porcelain doll and this fucking leech will pay for being a condescending piece of shit one day, or something) and carefully wipes the blood around the cut. Koga hisses in pain when he pours some of the solution onto the wound, so he quickly taps it away with a piece of gauze. He unpacks the small scissors to cut a slip of band-aid, and that’s when Koga snaps his hand back.

“I don’t need that”, he snarls, covering his left hand with his right protectively, “Just give me some glue n’ that’s it!”

“Excuse me?”, Rei blinks, “Is there a live today that I don’t know of? You cut your paw, doggie.”

“Are you a dumbass”, Koga mutters and leans back on the chair, as if he was a child and Rei was the stupid teacher chastising him, “I need to play, jus’ give me my guitar back and–”

Rei sighs and takes him by the wrist anyway; Koga makes another noise of protest that sounds like it came from the very core of him.

“You can’t play like that”, he says – slowly at first, but then he remembers how sensitive to potential insults Koga is and goes back to speaking normally, “Just rest for a couple of days until it’s healed, then you can play whatever you want. This song is not that important.”

“Not that impo– okay, _shut up_ , yeah?!”, Koga gasps and leans forward, back to his brawl mode, and Rei swallows back a tired sigh, “You– I don’t do shit that’s not important, okay, I’m jus’ gonna play it a couple more times, and– just–”

Rei cocks his head. There’s something urgent in Koga, stressed, like a small bird fluttering in a cage, and Rei discovers, not without frustration, that he has absolutely no idea why. No matter how many times he’s told Koga it’s not a priority – because that would be Chocolat Festival, in a month – he still fixates on this one song. Maybe he feels embarrassed, because earlier he had difficulties with that one part and now he wants to make up for that with awesome? Normally Rei would simply think it’s slightly puzzling, but adorable, but also normally Koga wouldn’t insist on playing with an injured finger, like there was some sort of a deadline chasing him, or–

Rei swallows. Koga looks… still ready to punch a dude, but also softer, lips pressed together, frown more desperate than furious. _No_ , Rei wants to say, no, this is the last thing on the list of things I want you to do, and his chest is hot again. Stupid, warm, hovering Koga who shouldn’t be doing half of the things he is doing. Was it like that with every song? Rei knows it’s impossible, Koga’s not a beginner, he’s absolutely far from that and Rei has seen him play more difficult things right off the bat. But another important fact he sometimes forgets – recently, quite often – is that Koga is also an idiot.

“Doggie”, Rei says, and it comes out so gentle that even he is surprised, and he seriously needs to put himself together. “If there’s something you need it for, just tell me”, he continues, and his hand almost instantly wanders to his hair. He is not putting himself together. “If not, I don’t think anyone will suffer if you don’t play for just this weekend.”

Koga lowers his head, biting his lips so hard it must be painful, and slowly extends his arm. His fingertips are red – way too much for it to be natural – and Rei’s own hurt just from looking. He takes Koga’s hand and puts a band-aid on the cut, checking if it’s not too tight. The bleeding has more or less stopped and before he realizes it, he pets the band-aid with his white finger, just like he used to do when Ritsu got hurt.

Koga’s hand feels even smaller now.

“You”, he starts, that one word short and quiet, and Rei realizes this is how people sound when they don’t have enough air, or when they’re about to cry, but Koga – Koga doesn’t look anything like that, or at least didn’t when Rei has last seen his face. “You said you won’t accept anything but perfection”, he finishes, or almost. Something like _fucker_ or _idiot_ hangs in the air unsaid, and Rei inhales slowly.

“I always say that, don’t you remember?”, he says, voice almost a whisper, “And you always deliver. I thought it would be obvious.”

But for him it’s not, it seems, because he looks up at Rei again, eyes fierce and full of that kind of frustration you feel when someone keeps on making the same mistake even though you repeatedly tell them not to, and you honestly want to just murder them on the spot.

“You’re a fucking dumbass”, Koga huffs, and Rei suddenly thinks of Shu.

Shu Itsuki.

“Koga”, he breathes, and Koga’s eyes are round and gold, so exactly the same as always, but “Doggie”, he corrects himself;

( _Koggie_ , his brain supplies helpfully)

and

Rei doesn’t have a big realization scene. In fact, he doesn’t have a realization at all, because he simply doesn’t think. His brain is entirely devoid of all thought and entirely full of the way Koga’s eyebrows are thick and furrowed in confusion, or the way his cheeks are round and flushed, and his lips (young, parted, stop biting it) are

warm.

Koga’s fingers twitch, still in his grasp, and his hand doesn’t know what to do – release or not – and they twitch together for a while, until Rei regains maybe ten percent of his composure and their lips part with a noise that feels almost obscene.

“A”, Rei says, letting go of Koga’s hand, and his head is white noise, “ _A_ ”, he adds after a while and gets up from the chair, presses cold hands against hot lips and hot cheeks, this is all so– so weird, and he’s never–

“Yyou”, Koga says, shaky and quiet, and Rei’s heart flutters in his chest, because Koga’s dumbfounded, opening and closing his mouth like the best fish in the world, yet still, looks like someone who could knock Rei’s teeth out whenever he feels like it, and in fact, he almost does.

With his own.

Rei is attacked and saved by one force; strong hands grabbing him by the waist, stopping him from stumbling back into the bookstand. The same strong hands travel up his torso and end up on his cheeks, squishing them mercilessly like their owner wanted nothing as much as to crush his skull.

“I’m gonna kill you”, Koga pants, thumb pressing on Rei’s sore lower lip, and Rei doesn’t mind.

The second kiss is a little more civilized, even though it’s only because Rei puts his hands gently on Koga’s cheeks, guiding him into it. He’s never kissed anyone, but at least he’s tentative and careful; Koga’s everything but, quick and messy, at least as messy as close-mouthed kisses can be, those that elementary school kids exchange in utter excitement – hands roaming over Rei’s body, having a longer stay at his waist and – ah – squeezing, then also – _ah_ – slipping under his uniform–

Rei makes a noise – not a moan, not a gasp, but something inbetween and rather embarrassing – and Koga pulls back slowly. He’s panting, cheeks red and hot, and the drops of light reflecting in his eyes, right on the black of the pupils, look like stars. Rei’s head feels hazy, just like when he’s imagining kissing Koga, except now it’s significantly more real and he can’t push his face in the pillow anymore. Koga licks his lips, eyes both wild and pleading, and this time they change: he puts his hands on Rei’s cheeks, and Rei’s hands grab him by the hips. Kogs presses his body tight against Rei’s and kisses him again, more purpose and passion than skill, and Rei’s fingers are trembling on his back, tracing the knobs of his spine until he, too, makes a surprised sound that melts his knees and solidifies everything else. Rei finds out that it’s possible to hold Koga even closer, so close that his hipbones hurt a bit, and he claws at Koga’s back. Koga kisses him harder, where did he learn that, he’s just a weird wolf boy, stunning bright and hot and tugging his lower lip with his teeth, tilting his head back until his teeth slide down Rei’s lip and release it. Koga tries the trick again, taking more of Rei’s lip as Rei’s fingers dip into his hair, nails grating the skin of his head and then lower, back and the side of his neck, and then slightly up again, pads of his fingers squeezing his earlobe and tugging the piercing, finally, finally, it’s all so soft, and then Rei’s body acts on his own as he tugs Koga’s head close and licks a slow stripe across his lips.

After that, he doesn’t really know which noise is whose.

If Koga was messy with chaste kisses, then right now he’s the worst slobbery mess imaginable. Rei doesn’t know whose saliva is trickling down his chin, but chances are it’s Koga’s, and in this case, he wants more, as disgusting as it sounds. Koga licks into his mouth like his life depended on it, biting and sucking on his tongue and lips and everything there is to suck, and Rei doesn’t let him be the only one having fun. Koga’s lips, full and soft and eager, are far more entertaining to play with, especially with the noises he’s making. Rei’s hands only leave Koga’s cheeks and ears when he shrugs off his uniform blazer, and then he goes right back to these ears – the best thing in the world, right after Koga, Koga’s lips and Koga’s tongue – first with his fingers, then mouth. Koga inhales sharply and his fingers stutter at the buttons of Rei’s cardigan, halfway unbuttoned, and Rei’s tongue moves higher, and–

“...oh, shut up, Yuuta-ku _oooooh!_ ”

Rei isn’t sure what happens first: the unique squeak of a laughing person being silenced by a sincere hand slapped on their mouth, or Koga jumping back with a half-gasp, half-wheeze. He knows, though, that Koga making a indefinable offended noise and the club room door slamming shut happens exactly at the same time, because a few seconds later he steps on his blazer.

And then there’s silence. Silence has a certain fascinating quality about it, namely: when it’s quiet, sudden, single sounds can be heard very clearly, such as _YEAH, MITSURU-KUN, WE’RE FREE TO GO_.

“Huh”, Koga says, and Rei has to agree. He looks at Koga – carefully focusing on the above the belt part – and Koga looks back in similar manner. They’re both terribly flushed and panting, lips red and swollen, hair a complete mess. Rei wipes his mouth with a sleeve and Koga makes a disgusted face. “What the _fuck_.”

Rei picks up his blazer and by the time he’s finished patting it clean, Koga is already sitting on the floor, resting his back on the side of the coffin. He’s sitting with his knees bent, elbows resting on them, and he’d look like a truly handsome delinquent if he wasn’t this ridiculously disheveled. _I did that_ , he thinks, and feels embarrassingly proud.

“What, you cold?”, Koga barks when Rei sits next to him, blazer back on and hugging his knees. Rei hums in response and can’t not smile when Koga bumps into him softly. Koga scoffs and rests his head on his knees. They stare ahead for a while, in a voiceless mutual agreement not to take any notice of the chairs they could have used instead of sitting on the floor.

“So what the fuck was that”, Koga mutters after a while, and when Rei only turns to look at him, he offers an explanation. “With Narukami.”

“Oh”, Rei says, and to say he wasn’t expecting this conversation would be a lie, but he still doesn’t know what to say. “Ah”, he adds, and also: “Well.”

“Were you goin’ out or not”, Koga says flatly, not looking at anything, and against everything, Rei feels warm.

“No”, he replies, observing Koga’s reaction. He’s probably thinking he’s unreadable, but Rei can see his shoulders relaxing. He almost doesn’t have a boner anymore, not counting the one in his heart. “Were you jealous?”

Koga snorts. And blushes at the same time.

_I adore you_ , Rei thinks, and that’s a good thought. Not as big, but still feels important.

“Like _fuck_ I was!”, Koga growls and crosses his arms, “I don’t even fuckin’ like you. The only person I could be jealous of would be the one who finally offs you.” Rei changes his position, hands folded in his lap, and looks at Koga with deep interest. “And that would be fuckin’ no one, ‘cause it’s gonna be me, get it?!”

Rei laughs – he manages to do the cool vampire laugh perfectly, even though he’s still giddy from the top of his head to the tips of his toes and giggling like a little kid would be much easier. _Koga_.

“Interesting”, he smiles and moves in front of Koga, placing a hand on his knee. Kogs huffs. “Especially since you’ve had multiple occasions to do that, for example…” He rises up a bit, resting on Koga’s knee, and uses his other hand to gently, teasingly pet the tip of Koga’s nose. “...back then.”

He acts like he’s cool about that, but he still feels a bit faint when he thinks about Koga’s lips on his own, light like the touch of a feather, and his face (terrified, but it doesn’t matter) being the first thing he saw after being woken up.

Koga snaps his teeth at his finger and while Rei easily dodges the bite, he can’t help laughing. Koga bares his teeth and grabs his tie, tugging him in for a kiss, but it’s way gentler than Rei expects, chaste and short just like in th beginning. He sighs blissfully and sits between Koga’s legs, then fixes his hair as he glares at him without much conviction. Rei cups his face and kisses his nose, both cheeks and forehead, and then Koga laughs with the sweetest _what the fuck_ Rei has ever heard, so he has to add another small kiss to that single dimple in his right cheek. He flops heavily on Koga’s shoulder and even though he sputters and weakly tries to shove him away, Rei doesn’t budge, burying his face in the crook of Koga’s neck, inhaling the smell of his body and trying to be as secretive about it as he possibly can. (And he can’t, at all, it takes Koga one second to snort and _are you fucking smelling me?)_ The smell of his sweat is nice and Rei wouldn’t mind, for example, wearing a shirt of his or at least using it as a pillow. He kisses Koga’s neck and he wiggles, ticklish, so Rei plants some more kisses on his neck and behind his ear until Koga attempts to bap him on the head and succeeds at slapping him in the face.

Rei decides to simply rest his head on Koga’s shoulder and this time he isn’t shoved away, even though Koga stubbornly refuses to look at him when he does that, so he stays.

Koga.

_K o g a_.

Koga, who according to the laws of all sciences, shouldn’t be doing this, and yet he is. Koga, who’s his own amazing self, who should never suffer anymore. Surrounded by Koga’s warmth, Rei doesn’t want to think about it, because it hurts; he’s doing something he has no right to do and he should stop right now, but– but he can’t. Not when Koga is right here, touching him and letting him touch himself, smiling and looking at him with thinly veiled adoration. Rei is – it feels strange, fragile and temporary, and unreal, and undeserved – but he’s happy. And if Koga is happy, then he wants to keep on making him so.

“Hey, leech”, Koga says after a while, when Rei’s spine is far from comfortable but he’s drifting in that pleasant state between sleeping and not sleeping, “Do things for me.”

Rei blinks the sleepiness back from his eyes and hums into Koga’s shoulder. “Anything you want, doggie.”

Koga hits him on the head with an open palm, so Rei whines in protest and sits up, away from the danger. “Cool! Practice three times a week, then.”

Rei groans and Koga reaches out to punch him lightly in the arm. “You said anything I want, dumbass. That means anything”, he says and Rei can’t disagree with that. He could mention that contracts made with minors are voidable, but they’re both minors, so he only makes a neutral noise. “We’re already popular as fuck with your lazy ass and Hakaze being useless, just fucking think how far would we get if three members out of four actually did their job!”

Koga’s being sarcastic – bitterly sarcastic, because as he sees it, only him and Adonis-kun are working hard while Rei and Kaoru-kun are getting all the recognition – but Rei wonders about that. Apparently Ritsu does practice from time to time, so he can’t be worse, and besides – he kind of wants Koga to think he’s cool again, so he says he’d think about it and swiftly dodges Koga’s punch.

Koga apparently considers him a djinn or a gold fish, because he has two other things he wants Rei to do, and the second is for him to eat more. Rei sighs – what happened to stealing jewelry? Writing songs? – but says that he only eats the amount of food his organism needs, and thus he can’t promise anything. Koga only shrugs and replies, with a smile that’s both adorably single-dimpled and slightly disturbing, that he’d just have to make him exhausted enough to eat.

When Rei asks about the third thing, Koga looks away, suddenly serious and frowning, and Rei feels like he’s not the only one here hiding something. Koga bites his lip and for a moment Rei wants to tell him everything, hold his hand and ask him about his secret stuff, but then he huffs and mutters something Rei can’t really understand.

“Fuck off”, Koga spits when Rei asks him to repeat it and he has to ask three more times and assure him that he really didn’t hear it, but he finally says it–

“Fucking– ask me out.”

and Rei freezes.

“Like on a date, dumbass”, Koga adds, even though Rei understood that part just fine, and looks away.

Rei feels warm all over, warm and alive, and when Koga turns back to him to check what the fuck is taking him this long to process, a date is a goddamn date, he’s showered in kisses again and once Rei starts, he can’t stop for a long time; because he’s nineteen, and nineteen-year-olds sometimes do stupid things like going out on dates or kissing smiles off cute boys’ faces.

“Tomorrow”, Koga says in a warning tone when they’re both properly red and disheveled again and Rei’s blazer is in Koga’s lap, warming their legs and covering hands they might or might not be holding. Rei squints, already back to drifting between sleeping on Koga’s shoulder and just chilling on it, and after some thought concludes that in this case, _tomorrow_ means Friday. So Koga wants a Friday date; that means more time, because there’s no school on the next day, and walking him back to his house, even though he’d protest and insult him to his heart’s content because he’s not a girl, for fuck’s sake, you go walk yourself home, and maybe staying over – but not necessarily. This is just a possibility. One of many, because maybe they won’t even go outside, staying at Koga’s house and playing with Leon; or maybe they’ll go to that cat cafe, or play rock-paper-scissors to decide a place and end up at a yakiniku place, where Rei will pretend he doesn’t know what to do with all this food but will eat some anyway, because it’s a date and because Koga won’t let him live if he doesn’t eat what the food he personally prepared. Or maybe Rei will have enough time to steal a bottle of beer from the fridge and they’ll share it like two overexcited middle schoolers, then pretend they’re drunk and make out more than necessary. Or maybe they’ll do something else.

Rei presses his cheek into Koga’s shoulder and closes his eyes, pleasantly aware that soon Koga will have to leave if he wants to catch a train back home, which means he’ll also have to untangle himself from Rei’s loving arms and Rei would really, really like to see him try.

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reposting for archival/tentatively dipping my left toe back in the enst fandom purposes. which means the formatting is bad until i don't have to study for exams


End file.
